Any communists here? I want to have an intelligent conversation about the history of communism.
Pls no flaming.
>>940822
Do communists see Stalin as a true communist? Or did he deviate too much from restoring power to the workers?
Was the USSR at any time the workers utopia it was supposed to be?
If so, were the atrocities committed necessary or did they detract from the ideals of the country?
I've never had these questions addressed in a non bias way. I'm curious to see how communists feel about the Soviet Union
>>940841
I really hope this isn't what this thread turns into
why don't you talk about the future of communism
oh wait there isn't one
Are you a worker?
>>940876
me? yeah, im an apprentice mechanic
ITT proof of /pol/'s claim that this board is /leftypol/ and that everybody who posts here is a Marxist :^)
>>940885
>pol believes that their shit is a movement and even created a wikipedia page for themselves
>>940885
I mean not really. I'm op. I'm not a communist. I started a thread trying to have intelligent discussion about communism past from the other side of the story, and no one came to my thread so it actually completely disproves your point
>>940931
I was being sarcastic
>>940866
>Do communists see Stalin as a true communist?
Of course he was. But after his death the USSR was on the slow ride to turbo-capitalism and he's partially responsible for that.
>Or did he deviate too much from restoring power to the workers?
Of course he did. Even some small traces of democracy could've done wonders to end corruption and thus preserve the Soviet state.
>Was the USSR at any time the workers utopia it was supposed to be?
Obvious not but things were fairly OK from the 1945-1975 period.
>If so, were the atrocities committed necessary or did they detract from the ideals of the country?
You could argue the immense casualties from industrialization and during the war were worth it to protect the USSR or whatever but I'm not so sure. I really don't have any strong feelings on Stalin or the Soviet Union one way or the other. Sometimes it was helpful in the cause of class struggle, other times not so much.
>intelligent conversation
>about communism
You can only have one.
>>940885
>6 posters
If anything this proves that very few people here are /leftypol/. Plus the marxians get BTFO in every /his/ economics thread, because even a macro 101 student can pick apart pleb tier heterodox trash like marxian and austrian """"economics"""".
>>940952
>"People will actually will be willing to let go of the concept of private property without a state coercing them to do so. That's real communism. Red dictatorships are not muh real communism".
>Said by an intelligent person.
Pick a number lower than two and higher than zero.
>Do communists see Stalin as a true communist? Or did he deviate too much from restoring power to the workers?
No, I do not believe he was a Communist. More of a Russiophile Nationalist who used "Socialism" as a tool to build a Russiocentric ideology.
>Was the USSR at any time the workers utopia it was supposed to be?
No, but the early revolution at least had some good things. Early 1920s USSR was easily the most progressive country on earth at that time by a mile. More progressive than even many western countries today.
>If so, were the atrocities committed necessary or did they detract from the ideals of the country?
Some were, many weren't.
>I've never had these questions addressed in a non bias way. I'm curious to see how communists feel about the Soviet Union
Most view it as an interesting experiment but degenerated workers state, it's something everyone needs to learn lessons from.
Srsly tho USSR was state capitalist
Communism is dead. You know how I know?
If you go to Trier and visit Karl Marx's house, you will see it has been turned into a museum dedicated to the history of communism. It will show you the original Worker's movement in Germany, the revolutions of the early 20th century, and the dictatorships that followed after. It's the most complete collection of communist history you will ever see.
At the end, there's a gift shop.
>>941554
Plot twist: those who enter the gift shop are sent to reeducation camps that teach them the evils of private property.
>>940822
Anarchist, not necessarily a communist, but close enough.
>>940841
I mean there are legitimate differences between certain tendencies that make reconciliation extremely difficult. It's not like animosity between marxists and anarchists or between Stalinists and Trotskyists is just because of dank memes.
>>940866
>Do communists see Stalin as a true communist?
Stalinists and their offshoots (Maoists, Hoxhaists) do. Others see him as either not a communist, or a communist with very serious flaws.
>Or did he deviate too much from restoring power to the workers?
I think so, yes.
>Was the USSR at any time the workers utopia it was supposed to be?
Marxism is anti-utopian, so no. There was a time after the revolution where it was more free for workers, though.
>If so, were the atrocities committed necessary or did they detract from the ideals of the country?
You mean the camps and intentional famine? No, they weren't necessary.
>intelligent discussion
>with marxists on 4chan
>>941711
I had the urge to shitpost in here but honestly it's better if they're contained in one thread instead of spilling their Marxist shit all over the board. I'll just hide it and leave them be.
>>940841
I always love these comics
Socialism is only the stepping stone to Mosleyism
>>941768
Shoo shoo eternal Anglo
>>941658
>Marxism is anti-utopian
>>941658
>Marxism is anti-utopian, so no.
wat
>>941827
But that doesn't harmonize. If I say "I'm gonna win the lottery 5 times in a row", and then say "But to be clear, I'm not an optimist", then people will think I'm a fucking nut.
>>941838
If someone says they're going to win the lottery and they have some sort of logical reasoning as to why they'll win, they're not being optimistic, even if their logic is wrong.
>>941827
Marx said he was anti-Utopian. He also believed in a classless society that would just werk, which he never elaborated upon beyond "you can be anything!"
Fishing, hunting, blah. Simply because he lays out a prospective sequence of events on the way to utopia, doesn't change what the destination is.
If course, Marxist conception of science is ridiculous bullshit, where his methodology is a science while physics is an ideology.
>>941874
So what's Marx's logical reasoning?
>>941879
>he never elaborated upon
Never? That's a bold claim. You've read all his work?
>>941888
Eventually, the contradictions inherent in capitalism will lead to a workers' revolution, in which the means of production are seized by the proletariat.
I'm not a Marxist, btw, so I'm probably not the most qualified to go in depth into Marxist theory.
>>942037
What are "the contradictions inherent in capitalism"? Is capitalism something more than what it is?
What are your honest thoughts on this man?
imo he was decent then he fucked it all it up
>>942064
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tendency_of_the_rate_of_profit_to_fall
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-e8rt8RGjCM
>>940841
To be fair, I'm a State Capitalist, and I feel that the Soviet Union was a piss poor example of State Capitalism.
Modern China on the other hand... Much better example.
>>940822
Do us a favor and kill yourself.
>>942090
nice refutation
>>942090
>doesn't want people to discuss the humanities
>would prefer a hundredth thread about Romans
Perhaps it is you instead who should seek the rope
>>942081
All jokes aside, I'd like to thank you. I've been interested in the debates between Marxists and capitalists, so it's nice to be able to understand Marx's theory. I'm watching the video right now.
>>942144
I know I'm going to get called out for this, but here it goes: A good way to pick apart the differences between Marxist and other economists that were his contemporaries and so on is how they think a crisis in capitalism originates. Marxism fully believes that boom and busts are inherent and are a natural consequence of the accumulation of capital while the latter tend to believe crisis as a consequence of some foreign action.
>>942037
>For as soon as the distribution of labour comes into being, each man has a particular, exclusive sphere of activity, which is forced upon him and from which he cannot escape. He is a hunter, a fisherman, a herdsman, or a critical critic, and must remain so if he does not want to lose his means of livelihood; while in communist society, where nobody has one exclusive sphere of activity but each can become accomplished in any branch he wishes, society regulates the general production and thus makes it possible for me to do one thing today and another tomorrow, to hunt in the morning, fish in the afternoon, rear cattle in the evening, criticise after dinner, just as I have a mind, without ever becoming hunter, fisherman, herdsman or critic.
Do you have another insight from Marx on what a Communist society would look like?
>>942167
>while the latter tend to believe crisis as a consequence of some foreign action.
That line of thinking was abortive after the Latin American credit crisis after the Napoleonic Wars. Boom-bust thinking precedes Marx, he was not a seminal author when it comes to what we now term as the business cycle.
>>942183
I was trying to be specific when I explicitly mentioned I was comparing him to his contemporaries..
>>942192
Do you know when Marx lived? Do you know when the Napoleonic wars happened?
>>942196
I was referring to his critique of Malthus. It's a good intro to his work
>>942205
Also Ricardo
>>942205
Right, but you shouldn't claim that Marx is the originator of the business cycle/crisis model. The modern conception of business cycles (especially among the public) as a quasi-decennial rhythm of expansion-crisis-recession-recovery was published in Paris almost a decade before Das Kapital. The general idea was in circulation before 1825.
>>941057
Out of curiosity, what are your thoughts on NEP? Was it wrong for the state to have discriminated against those who did well in the restored capitalism?
More questions to come, just too tired to think of them right now
>>941711
>Implying he does any of that.
The point is the workers manage and run everything in a business. Owners are completely fucking pointless apart from their capital.
I have investments (it's compulsory here in Australia) I could not fucking tell you a single thing of what any of the companies that have my money do with it.
>>941711
why do you keep posting this retarded autistic version
>>942352
What if the manager is also the owner?
>>942089
Modern-day China operates under a system of market-Leninism, it's really only nominally communist.
Actually, on the contrary though, China would seem to be a prime example of communism *failing* (albeit very gradually) -- China, as a Marxist state, simply could not survive as a major world economic power.
>>940822
So how do the arts function in a communist society? Let's say music... the state trains elite musicians to write and interpret music containing lyrics with political propaganda about the goverment and the nations history?
>>942871
Socialist states tend to have really good arts. Just look at classical music and ballet in the USSR or film in Communist Czechoslovakia. Artists tended to be free within somewhat reasonable bounds, and they didn't have to spew endless propaganda, either.
The fine arts have been funded by governing institutions since medieval times, anyway, so socialized arts isn't even a radical or dangerous concept.
>>943679
>Artists tended to be free within somewhat reasonable bounds,
hohoho
>>943689
Time to stop posting, Shostakovich. You antagonized Stalin personally and you know it.
>>941711
>>942360
>enjoying slavery
>>943689
>>943714
The inside jacket of the new(ish) release of Shostakovich's 10th symphony (in the of course re titled series "Under Stalin's Shadow") has this nice little double-take where it reads (paraphrasing) that after Stalin gave a bad review of his music he had to live in fear of his life... but in the next sentence talks about how he continued to compose music for the next 14 or so years. Whew lad. Stalin's criticism (actually, purely a music criticism) was right though and his music really is amateur. Liberals just love a narrative.
