Hey, newfag to communism/socialism here...

Hey, newfag to communism/socialism here. Its plain to see that in today's society the ruling class are basically taking the piss and concentrating more and more wealth and power in their own hands at the expense of everyone else. Socialism claims to be all about stopping that and making sure society works for everyone right?
Right now the only thing putting me off is that you guys don't really have a great historical record. I've heard Libertarians chimping out about muh free marget being the only system that 'works' yet its plain to see that it inevitably leads to corporate oligarchy as capital accumulates and de-facto disenfranchises most people. I also see that the planned economy was what allowed agricultural backwaters like Russia to make up 200 years of development in 20 years. While the economic situation may not have been as bad as western discourse makes it out to be, there were still multiple famines that collectivisation played a big part in and the planned economy is incredibly clunky on the microeconomic scale leading to massive breadlines, even if everyone had enough to spend.
Also how come literally *every* socialist experiment on a relevant scale has become a totalitarian nightmare dungeon state? On the level of 'you're not allowed to leave'. Surely if its some worker's paradise you'd be able to let your citizens leave knowing they'd want to come back anyway? And imprisoning people for political jokes, expressing opinions contrary to the party line etc.
I don't deny that your average citizen in the Eastern Bloc probably had a much more materially secure life (apart from in times of famine or economic mismanagement) than their western counterparts, but why has literally every socialist state been to so repressive compared to western ones? Also, weren't you assigned a place to live and a job regardless of your wants? Isn't that just like everyone living under one big corporation with a division of labour with tasks that need doing and people that need to do them regardless of whether they want to or not? Isn't that just like a slave that works but its okay because their master feeds them?
Not even Holla Forums, just a citizen bewildered by the current times and in search of answers about alternatives.
The only thing putting me off about socialism is that every time its been seriously tried it ends up the same.
I'm open to whatever you guys have to say.
pic unrelated it just evoked keks

Other urls found in this thread:

prole.info/texts/hamburgervalue.html.
youtube.com/watch?v=GEzOgpMWnVs&t=4s
youtube.com/watch?v=BYVes44hcJg&t=650s
youtube.com/watch?v=OOF56wYTl1w&t=1261s
twitter.com/SFWRedditVideos

I'm not going to say it was entirely America's fault, but I will say that they had a vested financial interest in seeing socialist states economically ruined.
Also, the coups.

Read this short text and come back at us: prole.info/texts/hamburgervalue.html.

Whoops, left the meme flag on.

We just need to combine 'western values' as much as I hate that term; ie. democracy, secularism (not state atheism), strong institutions, a belief in anti-corruption and meritocracy, as least overtly, with computerised central planning, add water and shake vigorously for one utopian society.

This thread is going to be great.

Most of your concerns are western propaganda
You already live in a police state that will make the statsi jealous
You already commit a lot of victimless crimes that the bourgeois dislike and we have a lot of dissidents in jails or having their ideas censored
The situation we live now isn't any different from the bullshit western powers talk about former socialist countries.

Don't worry, most of us are pretty critical of 20th century socialism. Even tankies are.

Not to mention the fact that the US has had forced unpaid penal labor for well over a century, and yet even though contemporary historians have shown that conditions in Gulags were far superior to most Western prisons their mere existence is used as some kind of ultimate argument against Communism as a whole.

It should also be pointed out that that the Gulags were shut down in the 50's, whereas forced penal labor in the US persists and today accounts for almost one third of all manufacturing in the US.

I'm not denying that there are elements of living in a modern western 'democracy' that are certainly more intrusive than any kgb agent's wet dreams.
No one's stopping me at the border though.

I like that you put 'relevant scale' in there so you can conveniently move goalposts when you're inevitably proven wrong.

Are you talking about the Berlin Wall? I think you're underestimating the degree to which most former Socialist Republics were under constant national security threat from Imperialist powers, there's an insane history of infiltration and subversion, it was shitty, but a lot of the paranoia was sadly justified.

i put that there because i'm talking about state-level projects as opposed to isolated anarchist experiments or stuff like that.
i'm not coming here trying to get pre-established prejudices proved right.

I have to agree with some of op's concerns. Is there any commie society that actually was completely hands off regarding the personal?ie they allowed people to have sex/drugs/whatever religion they wanted, enjoy travel and so on as long as it did not effect your duties

Because to me that is the one benefit of shitty neoliberal society.

Contrary to Western propaganda Cuba has always had freedom of religion, also, since at least the 80's they've been the world's leader in LGBT rights. Also, I remember watching a documentary once about how East Germany was way more progressive in regards to sex and gender, so when they reintegrated with West Germany there was a lot of friction on that end. Aside from that this is a woefully under explored topic.

Would you rather live in Cuba or Haiti?

youtube.com/watch?v=GEzOgpMWnVs&t=4s

Pay extremely close attention to the first few minutes, these are the most important observations of class society.

After that the video describes how capitalism got its hold on the world.

He has many other videos on the subject

youtube.com/watch?v=BYVes44hcJg&t=650s

youtube.com/watch?v=OOF56wYTl1w&t=1261s

this one is a personal favourite.

The capitalist historical record is way WAY worse, it just doesn't get talked about because it doesn't own the press

I actually had no idea about Cuba that's amazing considering most south americans I know hate gays and non-catholics.

Also source on that documentary since that sounds unbelievable.

i'm not denying that capitalism has a terrible record, but this seems like whataboutism.
what i want to know is why did the overwhelming majority of socialist states descend into tyranny?

Here's a small pamphlet on LGBT rights in Cuba, in case you're interested. I think I have another PDF on the subject but I can't find it at the moment. As it stands, in Cuba today all hormones and surgery for trans people are completely covered by universal healthcare, and it's been that way since the early 2000's. Also, the Catholic Church has been alowed to function undeterred since the Revolution, the only reason Gusanos say Christians are persecuted in Cuba are for the same reasons Christians say they're persecuted in the US, i.e. that not living in a theocracy where the State bases all it's politics on your personal beliefs=being persecuted. Anyway, I'll look for the East Germany documentary, I can't remember the name though.

Yo I just want to point out that it's pretty common knowledge that american interests will literally destabilize or outright replace the governments of countries trying to implement communism. Capitilism is a game that works better (for the ruling class at least) the more people who are playing along.

Never forget Holla Forums

It's called 'do communists have better sex?' and last I saw it was on Vimeo and sometimes you can catch it on youtube

Okay so, you are right there were a ton of problems with 20th century ML(Marxist-Leninist) states. Firstly, Russia like the other ML states was a backwater feudal country in which the material conditions for socialism were not there. Like you said, they went through a huge expansion of economy in an unnaturally fast way (state capitalism is very efficient at modernizing and industrializing) and we can learn things from the failures and successes of these states. That being said, most every communist does not wish to recreate these states, nor do they have the authoritarian tendencies that were present in these states. The reason most socialist experiments went this way, was during the 20th century and especially the cold war, you had to pick a side. Be a western lib. dem, or take the road of the USSR and buddy up with them. By the way, famines plagued Russia and China every 8-15 years in the past and famines altogether pretty much stopped happening after the CP's in their countries took power. But anyway if you have any questions about what we are really about then fire away.

For a non-totalitarian socialist state, doesn't Catalonia fit the bill? I don't know much about it, but I think the only type of repression they had was forced labor camps.

have you ever been at a border? Do you have any idea of how much paperwork is need to cross from a country to another?

Welcome to the real world where noone has the answers and everything needs to be carved out with your own bare hands while oligarchic sycophants sneer and brag about muh authority.

Its not what aboutaboutism though, these videos describe a global process of imperialism and the effects that has had. Granted, the USSR killed a lot of people, but what it didn't do is attempt to crush almost every popular movement (not even necessarily left wing, sometimes just nationalist) that threatens their business interests.

I'm not saying, the Soviet union wasn't bad because America was worse, I'm saying, their is a global Empire that needs to be stopped. The history of socialism is not a history of senseless barbarism, its a history of people fighting against this empire, in many cases resorting to terrible methods, but which ideology has not employed these methods, and to whose benefit were they employed? Modern Liberalism in Europe kicked off with the French Revolution, one of the most bloody conflicts ever.

If you understand there is an elite, and you understand that they will stop at nothing to keep hold of that status, then you understand perhaps many of crimes usually associated with communism can be looked at in a very different light.

Lets take Cuba, sure Castro fired up those prison camps, and yet the population of Cuba support his regime to this day, because what they had before, the Dicatator batista, was far worse. Cuba's population are some of the best off in the region and Cuba has done a lot to help the rest of the region with educational programs and cheap oil etc.

The people in these prison camps were to a large extent people who had supported prison camps for others before, only this time the prison camps made sure the people got what they needed, and the profits from their oil and sugar weren't shipped off into US bank accounts never to be seen again

Not if you're a mexican heading to canada
Not if you're living anywhere where it is a good idea to gtfo asap.
Not when US nationalists proceed to lock you up inside the borders as the shitstorm roars out in full

Also, if you look into Anarchist experiments such as Revolutionary Ukraine, Catalonia, Rojava, the Honduran Campesino movements or the Korean Anarchist movement you will see the historical record is much less bloody.

These are the societies I wish to emulate and build on

Socialism is not anti-individual, and any forced collectivisation well deserves the scorn. War with expansive powerfull and wealthy empire apparently couldn't be won by outbadding the bad guys who proceeded to laud themselves as some fucking global superhero police.

They all failed because Kropotkin was right (ahead of his time, even!) and they didn't listen.
t. Kropotkin, 1896, The Conquest Of Bread

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