Why do you like communism?

how contrived and trite is it when people like this try to make biting psychoanalytical observations

It's all good stay in college and focus on theory. When it comes you'd be jailed or even executed for being kulaks. I'm the proletariat not you.

Tankies in a nutshell

thanks for letting me know your feelings got hurt, that was what I was expecting

Nigger you don't even know what class is.

This is what happens when you don't read theory, but beat off to mechanics and mcdonald's workers

We'll see about that

The US spent good money to to make their economy what it is today. Most other Eastern European countries did not have such luxuries and most have a majority that wishes to return to "communism"

Myself, I'm a market socialist. I think we should critique capitalism right down to its fundamentals while learning from the mistakes of the past while finding creative and pragmatic solutions.

What about Yugoslavia?

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Considering that social democratic solutions have been tried for the past 70 years, no that's not what I was referring to. I meant more along the lines of this:

jacobinmag.com/2012/12/the-red-and-the-black/
jacobinmag.com/2016/11/bernie-sanders-democratic-labor-party-ackerman/
jacobinmag.com/2016/11/finance-banks-capitalism-markets-socialism-planning/
digamo.free.fr/nove91.pdf
youtube.com/watch?v=a1WUKahMm1s

Tell us OP: in this so-called socialist country of yours were there democratic workplaces? Did the workers themselves decide how to distribute the surplus value of their production?

None, and specially not you.

What you're describing is Marxism-Leninism, which is a specific model of socialism and really the only one that saw widespread and prolonged use. It's also a model that a lot of people here (myself included) reject. To add to that it was imposed on your country from without, further distorting its effects.

A lot of people here would agree that ML was a failure, that doesn't mean that other models will fail. This would be like saying that all capitalism fails because Greece, a capitalist economy, failed. All it really tells us is that the Greek model of capitalism failed. Likewise, all the USSR and its satellites tell us is that Marxism-Leninism is deeply flawed.

Have you ever sucked a guys cock? Well I have… I mean the point is you don't know how great being gay is until you try it.

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For that to be true you'd have to be at least 50 years old.

Somehow I doubt that.

It's pretty fucking weak that the biggest complaint you can bring against 20th century socialism is that you didn't get as many consumer goods as you could have in the West.

No. No one has. That's one of the few things that's not up for debate, among leftists (some tankies will probably say that the regime you lived under was socialist but none would argue it was communist).

My family lived in Poland and Lithuania (I did not, but I know from my relatives what life was like there), so I can understand your disdain for all people who call themselves communist given your experience. I strongly dislike MLs and I am against the sort of gratuitous violence and edginess that you'll see in a lot of the left today.

Rather than explaining why I like communism, I feel it would be more instructive to explain what communism is and how it works. In order to do this we must start with labor.

Today, people do not enjoy labor. Labor is something we have to do. We feel no sense of accomplishment or fulfillment in our work because the products of our labor are not ours. They belong to our bosses. And we, more often than not, did not choose our work primarily based on our interests. How could we? That doesn't pay the bills. That's not to say that people naturally hate all productive activity, but rather that work, in a capitalist system, means doing something you are not interested in. It also means that the fruits of your labor are not yours.

In addition, workers do not have free access to work in any field they wish even ignoring the issue of pay, as the capitalist class owns the means of production so you must receive permission from the capitalist class to access the MoP.

In a classless society, in which the means of production are unowned or collectively owned, each worker would receive the full product of their labor as they are not selling their time for wages and producing during that time for a capitalist, but rather producing on their own with a means of production which they are not kept from. This means the worker can freely pursue their interests and their work is fulfilling. Work is not something done in the name of making ends meet, but rather something which is rewarding in itself, and allows people to develop their skills and interests. All of this also requires that people are sufficiently well taken care of, of course. Which is where demand comes in.

Economists will often tell you that people have unlimited wants and we have unlimited resources so providing for what everyone wants is impossible. That may be true in our current society, but that's very much specific to context. If someone offered me 10 warehouses full of printers in a capitalist society, of course I'd take them. I would then sell them and use the money to buy things I actually wanted. I have no use for the printers but I want them anyways because I can exchange them for things I do want. In this sense there is a crucial difference between what we want for personal use and what we want in order to exchange that often goes overlooked. The owner of a button factory will keep all the buttons until he finds people willing to give him money rather than giving away the ones he doesn't use. Why? He likely has no personal use for all the buttons he has. He does so because he knows that if he gives away all the buttons, there is no guarantee his needs will be taken care of. So he seeks a quid pro quo exchange as a security measure. He must secure what he wants in the market and in order to do that, he must ensure that these buttons of his are exchanged for some cash. If he already had everything he wanted, and he knew he could continue to live how he liked regardless of what his buttons sold for, he'd have no incentive to keep them. Hoarding is a phenomena specific certain modes of production. What this means is that provided a person is confident they will receive what they need, they will be willing to distribute the products of their labor according to demand.

Of course this means that we need to have an economy in which we produce enough to at least satisfy everyone's personal wants within reason. So once again certain jobs which not enough people are interested in will have to be automated. However, even without purposely organizing our economy along these lines, we are producing enough food to feed everyone. Given more sustainable farming practices, from what I understand, we will be able to produce even more per acre, and a greater diversity of produce. In other areas as well we will have to move to more sustainable solutions that are structured toward meeting demand in the long term rather than making a profit in the short term.

But from this hopefully you can see how, a system in which personal freedom, each person being in control of the product of their labor, labor from each according to their interest and ability, distribution according to wants can work.

oh and OP the revolution in Russia went to shit mainly because it was limited to developing nations and pre-capitalist societies. It did not spread in part because the tactics that the International espoused did not work for the developed world.

The proletarian class did not take the active role that they would have had to in Western Europe, as they were smaller in Russia and thus relied on the peasants for support (For more on this read Herman Gorter's Open Letter to Comrade Lenin).

Here is where things started to fall apart for the Russians at least from how I understand it. They were isolated diplomatically. Resources were scarce. The class was itself not exactly in power, not through any fault of the leaders of the revolution, but mainly due to circumstance. Once again, they relied on revolutionary leaders and the peasants. Thus proles were not necessarily as in control of the nation as they would be. They were, a relatively small population in an underdeveloped country. Resources were very scarce which, as I've explained means that there was absolutely no way communism could have worked. Russia had to become a world player competing on the terms of other capitalist countries. Thus those in power were left with rather limited options and the nation devolved into state capitalism before stalin came into power.

At least that's my understanding. I'm sure a Stalinist is gonna come by in a moment and tell you why I'm full of shit and actually the USSR was actually existing socialism. I don't know enough about Russian history to say "well my view is right," I'm just telling you the way I've been told the history of what happened. At the very least, given my family's experiences, I do not think Poland was socialist and likely if you lived in a Soviet satellite state your experience was similar to those in my family

This is the best explanation of the results of the defeat of the international revolution outside of my own reading.

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Just got through the first one, it was a good read. Thanks marksoc.

No prob fam

Not quite. The plan was to use capitalism to industrialize and then to transition into socialism. Unfortunately Lenin died and then Stalin declared that what they had was already socialism and that was the end of it.

It's the only way to guarantee true freedom for the individual.

Capitalism is shit. I want a new world, not based on exploitation, inequality, war, racism, greed, ignorance and pollution, but a world where everyone is free to develop their lives and abilities, benefitting from technology and knowledge to leave the old world of class society behind. What do we have to lose?

We need more messages like this propagated to larger masses of people. If we do, a sophisticated communist movement may then be on the horizon.

Poland was only ever good under Communism, its a 3rd world shithole now. Fucking Cappie cucks.

where was that? fantasia?

Because it sounds fucking awesome.

The Left say things like "imagine if ___ went socialist!" When you point to central and eastern Europe their response is "No! That wasn't real socialism, that was state capitalism!"
The Left cares only about revolution it doesn't care about the "people on the ground."

And then you show pictures of Russophile fascists.

except those governments WERE state capitalism. Look at their fucking economic designs you damn sperg

Opinion discarded

stopped reading there tbh.

Also stalinism is a shit.

Read a book faggot

Yugo was shit under Tito. And some of that shit was because of Tito.

Fuck off, I'm tired of being ripped off by my parasitical employer and landlord who don't provide any value to me or anybody else.

I work with a product that sells itself, the shareholders can piss off and get a job, it disgusts me that I'm working towards someone else's dividend who'll never work themselves.

And neither does my landlord even work, he seldom collects the rent himself (he gets his brother to do it mostly) as he's almost perpetually on holiday somewhere exotic and nice. When he does turn up himself, he's riding in an ostentatious petrol guzzling 4x4, boasting about his exploits abroad and how well his kids are doing in private school (which in the UK are tax exempt as "charities" despite churning profit).

Oh and I forgot to mention that I rent a room in a mould infested house shared with 6 other people and we only have one kitchen, toilet and bathroom between us. Orwell thought these kind of living conditions were deplorable back when he wrote The Road To Wigan Pier 80 years ago.

All the while I have to kiss ass and pretend that I like these vampires.
This is cuckoldry, having to be servile and feign gratitude as you part with the fruits of your labour, lest you want your owner to ruin your life for telling it how it really is.

Great explanation, ChristChan. Saved.

There is no such thing as stalinism, there's only Marxism-Leninism and revisionism.

Socialism is when the worker's own the Means of Production.
A communist society would be one without state,classes and have worker's ownership of the means of production.
rarely anyone on this board will try and convince you that what you had under The USSR and the Warsaw Pact states was Socialism,let alone Communism (bar the hardcore tankies and Stalinists).
The ChristComm explains this very well

That's not how it works.

Pray tell, how does your magical Socialism work then?

You're a faggot and you have no idea what you're talking about.
t. Pole

By workers owning the means of production.

Except you have no idea what that means other than "not how it happened in USSR".

What it means? I just said it: it means the workers own the workplace. It means the workers do what the owners used to do. It means what happens in the economy is decided democratically, by everyone involved in the economy.

It's really quite simple.

So, how is this Socialism different from USSR? This was the question you refused to answer.

Did you ask that question? You asked me how my idea of socialism "worked". I answered.

But just to humour you, I'll answer: In the USSR, the means of production were nationalised, not socialised. That is to say, the workers did not own the means of production, because the state owned it. Sure, you might say that the workers owned it by proxy, through the state, but that's no substitute for the real thing. The workers still didn't make any decisions, they still had bosses and managers, and you still had an upper class of people who wielded far more power and lived under way better conditions than the average worker.

You know what would answer your question?
A FUCKING BOOK

But right now he's asking you.

test

Can properly answer with text for some reason.

Picrelated.

This is probably the most aesthetic image reply I've seen so far.

You assume too much, user.

So funny to see so many people conceding to liberals that soviet socialism was a failure trying to win them over. all of you should fuck off to >>>/liberalpol/

Soviet socialism had issues but none of them had to do with marxism-leninism. First, USSR didn't start out as an heavily industrialized country, but as a backwards shithole, therefore the focus on heavy industry to get on par with the west (which, during all of USSR history, tried to undermine it). Then, after Stalin died the bukharinites got control of the Party and their reforms arguably fucked up soviet socialism with the rise of the shadow economy and the black market, as well as the birth of a new capitalist class in the latest years.
I hope this answers you OP.

Yes? Didn't I answer that? You didn't ask me to answer whether the USSR was socialist, you asked me what my definition of socialism was, and it was worker's ownership of the means of production.

That they didn't own the factories. The state did. They may have been able to make inputs, but that didn't mean it happened, and in the end it's no different from HR and "participatory workplaces" today. They don't earn the fruits of their labour, they laboured in the factories, met the quotas set for them, and then got their wage. It's no different from a factory today.

Is everyone you don't agree with an Ancap? The answer is obvious, if you had some basic reading comprehension: The workers may "own" the factory since the state that represents them owns it, and they may be able to come with some input, but that's no substitute for them actually owning it as a collective. Socialism isn't "the state does it".

Don't know enough about the USSR to answer the next two.

Have you looked? Put it like this: You have a bunch of people in the Soviet Union and WP-nations, who get to make a lot of decisions for people. An example is the Ministry of Culture, who got to decide, among other things, what texts were published, what was played in the theatre, and who the actors and actresses were. Say a minister had a beef with one of the actresses of a theater, say she didn't want to sleep with him; he could then threaten to fire her or take her out of a role if she didn't sleep with him. Again, it's no different from a boss threatening to fire a worker if she doesn't give him a fucking blowjob. These bosses, if they're high up enough, can usually get away with it. Don't you think those ministers could?

No, it means worker's ownership of the means of production. Fuck off.

Definitely the tankiest post I've read this week. Bravo.

Why wouldn't you?

based britbro

do you have any self consciousness?

Picrelated again.

Fuck you, Holla Forums.

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I don't. I like National-Syndicalism, National-Socialism and National-Communism. I believe Marx was correct in his analysis of capital but incorrect in his internationalist solutions.

Let me ask you a question: Have you read a book?

Because that shit you wrote is filled with more ideology than the average Holla Forums post.

I work in a chicken processing plant.

We can be proponents of communism and still criticize and learn from the history of the USSR

Hello, Zizek.

People prefer to simply criticize. Then they don't need to learn.

It was socialist yes, but it wasn't communist.

And yes, we're allowed to say that because USSR after Stalin matched basically none of the tenets of communism.

However, "National Socialist" Germany matched ALL of the tenets of fascism as laid out by the Italian fascists.

Also, this

Not surprising a Stalinist doesn't like psychoanalysis, Pavlovian behaviorism is the true proletarian science of the human mind amrite?

Also theres nothing wrong with the word Ideology, it's been used since Marx dumbass

kys tripfag

feels good man

OP here.

No, no it doesn't. You wouldn't feel that way if you were in my shoes.

I thank everyone for their well-intentioned responses. My question was one of sincere curiosity as leftists are quite rare in my country now. Most young fucks are Korwinist 'conservative-libertarian monarchists'. Which I hate equally to communism. But still, most of your posts were interesting reads. I thank you for taking the time to write them, particularly a few very good ones. I guess I'm just a product of the times that cannot be convinced.

And from this phrase alone we can see you learned nothing, GG OP.

First fucking learn the difference.

Alright then, to use a mean-spirited response: your old situation, crap as it was, was still way more than enough to place you among the world's richest half, and having the entire world at that level would still be ethically superior to the situation we have now.

A reasoned response: I don't think anyone here other than tankies actually advocates for that situation. Communism's social conquests were marred by authoritarianism, dogmatism and a million others isms. But there were other, short-lived socialist experiments that pointed to better, more humane ways. Future attempts to build socialism can learn from these successes and mistakes, as well as incorporating yet new ideas, and this is what we propose. The people who talk about socialism having died seem to imply that no other form of it could arise, which is not true. Wage labor took 4 millenia to finally take hold, so in hindsight I shouldn't really have expected the very first large-scale socialist experiment to get it right.

Which are euphemisms for Stalinism and "Stalinism that I don't like".