Why were the leaders of Communist countries so fucking retarded?
>Lets kill all agricultural scientists then collectivize, making urban workers who have no knowledge of agriculture manage it all, GENIUS!
>How is science useful in agriculture? It isn't, just fuck my shit up with Lysenkoism!
>Wow this farm is claiming it's got 50 tonnes of wheat on one acre, instead of actually verifying this or testing this out at all, just make all farms do the exact same shit they are doing!, FUCKING GENIUS
>CORN, CORN EVERYWHERE IN NORTHERN SIBERIA AND THE BALTICS! WHAT DO YOU MEAN CORN REQUIRES WARM-HOT WEATHER?
>Computers? How would computers help at all in bureaucracy, production or central planning? We are scrapping all computing programs and policy! Computers, what a load of bullshit
>Why would we build consumer goods when we can build millions of tanks and aircraft despite we already have nukes which means basically there is no chance of conflict against us ever.
>Who needs modern infrastructure? Just melt that shit down in a fire in your backyard, it'll be alright!
>Just dump toxic waste into catchment areas, it's will be alright!
>LOL ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCE, WHAT WILL THEY THINK OF NEXT? BAN THAT SHIT.
What the fuck? Did they purposely sabotage their countries on purpose to make them collapse or what?
>>986070
>falling this hard for capitalist propaganda
>>986102
All of that shit happened.
I actually believe that these countries could have been completely functional and successful if they didn't have luddite morons ruining literally everything at the top.
>>986070
The hardest part about trying communism is trying to make literally everything centralised and efficient. Which everyone fails at to some degree because they don't go together.
>>986070
>What the fuck? Did they purposely sabotage their countries on purpose to make them collapse or what?
Closer to the truth than /his/ will admit. Commies have a fetish for materialism, and anything approaching idealism or morality makes them scream SPOOK, so they have to banish it all to make an example to the proletariat of what they should REALLY value
>>986106
>luddite
Most top Soviet/Chinese politicians had technical education and were technocrats at best. The Chinese CP is still largely technocratic even today.
>Computers? How would computers help at all in bureaucracy, production or central planning? We are scrapping all computing programs and policy! Computers, what a load of bullshit
I love how Victor Glushkov and Leonid Kantorovich got fucked over so hard because the CCP elite realized their computing systems basically rendered most of them irrelevant.
>>986070
lol, nice try, porky, w/e they did it ended famine in most of the world.
>>986070
>>Why would we build consumer goods when we can build millions of tanks and aircraft despite we already have nukes which means basically there is no chance of conflict against us ever.
hurr durr, guess which ones way more lucrative.
>>986110
>anything approaching idealism or morality makes them scream SPOOK
But communism was based entirely around slave morality and idealism of what the state should be
>>986282
>using slave morality in any sort of normative sense
Go away dummy
>>986282
you completely misread the context for idealism.
>>986291
How did I misread the context? how can materialism and idealism not be part of the same ideology?
>>986302
They're irreconcilable. To put it simply idealism is the belief that consciousness is reality, transcending phenomena. Materialism is the belief that phenomena dictates everything, including consciousness.
>>986302
I'm sorry, nevermind what I said, you didn't misread anything, you're just a retard.
>>986324
>idealism is the belief that consciousness is reality, transcending phenomena
Where did you get this definition for idealism? I've never seen it been used in this sense
>>986344
It's the standard definition in philosophy.
>>986349
My bad, I haven't read a whole lot of philosophy. But I still think that morality is fundamental to Marxist ideologies. The Soviet bloc attacked the West for not having human rights just as much as the West did them, they just had a different idea of what those human rights were
>>986371
Trouble with that is the Soviet Union never adhered Marx's philosophy, it was state capitalism. Marxism ultimately has little to do and your belief that it idealizes the state show's you're unfamiliar with the source text.
>>986383
No, imbecile, the NEP ended in 1928. Stop talking with anarchists who can't get their story straight.
>>986383
Sure they didn't follow Marx's philosophy exactly but it was a Marxist ideology. I'll admit that I'm a little shaky on Marx's writings but I'm pretty sure that he was in favor of a socialist government that would transition society gradually towards communism. Even though the Soviets never set up a clear path forward to reaching this end goal they still held on to the idea that the state was a means to eventually creating this utopia. I expressed myself poorly in saying they idealized the state, but rather they saw the state as a way to reach their ideal
>>986401
Generally the argument for it being state capitalism hinges on the fact people still engaged in wage labour for a boss who privately owned the capital they utilized, only the multitude of bosses was replaced with a singular boss: the state. The particulars of the economic system beyond that don't matter.
>>986401
>No, imbecile, the NEP ended in 1928
kek, and it was still state capitalism you goof.
>>986408
>but it was a Marxist ideology.
If it failed to adhere to Marx's philosophy, how is it a Marxist ideology. How can the Soviet Union been a "marxist ideology"? Was it capitalist or not?
>>986408
>I'm pretty sure that he was in favor of a socialist government that would transition society gradually towards communism
Well you're incorrect. Marx advocated for the abolishing of the state, characterizing it as necessary for class rule and the implementation of hierarchy. The Marxist-Leninist belief of a vanguard party being necessary after the revolution is contradictory to this.
Also, why do you keep referring to a "utopia"?
>>986070
>implying you need agricultural scientists when you have Lysensky
>>986070
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=teTUVKzErkI
Tito was genuinely loved by his people and liked around the world. He balanced relations between the east and the west, under him Yugoslavia truly prospered in cultural, economic military endeavors. His fall gaveway to nationalism and hate and ultimately the dissolution of Yugoslavia.
Communism is shit though.
>>986409
>The particulars of the economic system beyond that don't matter.
yeah, no except it always does, because it's practice is determinant in the last instance of the form which the state takes despite what your static, uniform, and spooky concept of the state might prevent you from acknowledging. I don't except the administrative capacity taken up by the collectives and cooperatives in relation to economic planning to really register with you right away, nor the exchange process of the sale of labour time in production, but don't admit that you'll willfully ignore the particulars of one without the other, jfc.
>>986427
..and no, Capitalism isn't a mindset.
>>986497
Capitalism is a matter of product relations, in which capital is privately owned while being utilized by workers who are ultimately alienated from the product of their labour for the primary benefit of this owner, which describes the Soviet Union just fine. Anything beyond that is just splitting hairs for apologetics.
>>986427
>Marx advocated for the abolishing of the state
Ugh, I get that you're trying but please don't strawman Marx as being the kind of sleazy ratfuck phrasemonger who wouldn't even bother to investigate "how".
>>986282
>of what the state should be
Communism, when applied, would have been stateless.
>>986503
>capital is utilized by the workers
Nooooo, bumblefuck, the means of production are utilized by the workers in exchange for wages. This is the division of capital in circulation as described in the First Chapter of the 2nd Volume. I
>alienated
...And in cases where the process of production is socialized along with division of labour the proceeds of production are the aggregate product (capitalism) of this process. As I stated before, the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (full name of the entity to which you are referring) was as far from being the sole possessor (owner) of capital (even in the capacity of planning, which was accounted for in the administrative capacity by it's component bodies) anymore thatnparallel states would be in capitalism.
It's not hair splitting or apologetics(implying wrongdoing), your definitions are just a pile of goo and you talk about Marx out your ass as loud as any anti-communist might.
>>986070
nomenklatura basically made it that the entire Soviet structure was built entirely on nepotism and nothing else and once people got into positions of power, they basically held onto that power and never let go.
So you had a bunch of Stalinist senile geriatrics who are only in a job because they sucked enough dick to get where they were.
>An official in the party or government bureaucracy could not advance in the nomenklatura without the assistance of a patron. In return for this assistance in promoting his career, the client carried out the policies of the patron. Patron–client relations thus help to explain the ability of party leaders to generate widespread support for their policies. The presence of patron–client relations between party officials and officials in other bureaucracies also helped to account for the large-scale control the party exercised over the Soviet society. All of the 2 million members of the nomenklatura system understood that they held their positions only as a result of a favor bestowed on them by a superior official in the party and that they could easily be replaced if they manifested disloyalty to their patron. Self-interest dictated that members of the nomenklatura submit to the control of their patrons in the party.
Basically any brain fart that was shit out by your boss, you supported 100% because if you didn't, bye bye to your luxury position in Soviet society.
>>986483
especially communism fueled by unsustainable debt loads, as it was in Yugoslavia
he was objectively shit.
>>986548
shit you have no clue about, because you're littledicked gnar gnar who thinks the SU was capitalist between 1928 and 1956 and has not other evidence to back that fact besides their interpretation of a subjective process which applies to all modern economies in which production is socialize and/or produce an aggregate product large enough to sustain this body.
Why is this thread a debate about Capitalism vs Communism?
OP's question is about the bizarre actions of Communist leaders which go against all basic common sense which led to widespread structural issues within communist countries leading to disaster and their eventual downfall.
>>986560
Holy buttblasted.
>centrally planned economy, controlled by an aristocratic class to whom the surplus of labor is distributed
>not state capitalism
ok kiddo
>>986070
Why in Australia is the Government rolling out a new copper network for more expensive than the shitcanned fiber network?
Because politicians care holding power than the good of society.
>>986573
Holy fuck! You didn't even know what capitalism is in the first place , now you went and added aristocracy and the surplus of labour to it. Keep right on going.
>>986590
Surplus of labour was a typo, meant to be value, and aristocracy aptly describes it. Oh and don't forget the existence of wage labour.
>capital presupposes wage-labour and wage-labour presupposes capital. They mutually condition one another; they mutually bring each other into existence
>>986070
Lack of feedback from lower levels of power. Or more likely - not listening to the feedback.
>>986612
This, and a lack of restrictions on what they can do.
It's hard to pull a great leap forward when you've got a democracys red tape standing in the way.
>>986454
This, hindsight makes mistakes seem avoidable.
Duuuuuude
*coughs*
Hold on
Yer sayin?
* adjusts beanie*
You're trying to tell me?
*strums guitar*
You're telling me that?
*sips coffee*
Can somehow
*passes joint*
Seize the means of production and stuff?
*blogs about the evils of capitalism on new iPad*
>>986595
In either case it's wrong, because you've got no evidence for either of the things which you suggest existed.
yes, wage labour exists in socialist societies, as well as capitalist societies. In socialist societies the function of the state and the administrative body's function within the working class is to increase this wage in accordance with productivity in order to raise the purchasing power.
What's even more absurd is that I've already had to explain for you the circulation of capital and it's division between means of production and the purchase of labour power(wages) and you can sincerely state that the existence of wage labor took place alongside the distribution of it's expression to an imaginary aristocratic class, in which you've dug a hole for yourself which you can't get out of. All this in the passage where you quote Marx as stating that capital presupposes wage-labour (and is hence the source of it's value). It is true that capital brings the existence of wage labour in the proletariat into existence, and in socialist societies it is the proletariat which develops it's administrative capacity and repressive apparatus.
...and it's disingenuous to quote Marx dogmatically irrespective of the application of this process in practice free of mythology surrounding the soviet union.
пoпa
кaкaшки
caп б мyp мyp мyp мyp
>>986529
Yes, and jesus will come again to judge us on our sins
"True" communism is a stateless, moneyless, classless society, completely ruled by the people.
In order to "enforce" it across an entire nation, it would require giving all power to the state during the "transition" to communism. That's where it always fails.
True communism would work just fine in a small collective of people, or a "commune", but the idea that it's an effective form of government for an entire nation is utterly retarded, which is why I fucking hate commies and I spend most of my day hurling abuse at them over the internet.
>>986561
Too many communists on /his/.
You'd think a history board would pay more attention to actual history.
>>987664
Communist college students and kids still paying off loans
