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So this person named Von Rotundstein made a post called "Communism BAD" and tried to be all smug about the fact he can't comprehend the basics of geopolitics and reality. Here, let me go through his points one by one so you get what I mean:
"There's quite a few self-proclaimed communists on Spacehey, mostly Americans, which makes more sense I guess, as their families didn't have to live through it."
This is just not true - many, and probably most communists aren't American. This user is from the Czech Republic, and if he's actually 21 (all of this is public info from his profile so I'm not doxxing him or anything), he 100% did NOT even live through any sort of communism himself, so this seems pretty unreasonable to mention.
Having family that DID live under a communist state still doesn't prove anything - I have Russian friends of who their families moved here after the collapse of the USSR, and they have many stories about how shit got so bad after the union fell apart - pretty different from what Rotundstein heard, ey? People's personal or family experience can't represent all of the millions of people who lived during those times.
What should also be important to mention is that the USSR and the Warsaw Pact members (and honestly just every communist nation during the Cold War) were sanctioned to shit by over half of the entire world over their ideology - a fight NATO and its allies started, not the communists. If America were to be constantly at war, sanctioned by over half the world, was actually in Europe instead of the much more safe North America, was sabotaged like crazy and threatened and attacked with so much more, then the USA would collapse just as bad or even worse than the USSR.
"They don't have relatives who weren't allowed to study, because their relative dared to leave the country. They weren't interrogated for listening to western music. They didn't have to stand in a queue for hours for a chance of buying meat, because the economic system simply doesn't work. They didn't live under a regime, where people were forced to plead guilty of crimes they didn't commit and then get hanged for them. They didn't get beaten up by the police for disagreeing with the state policies. Their country didn't get invaded and occupied for 20 years by their "comrades" for trying to return some freedom to the people."
Here he points out horrible scary things that "happened under communism" but forgets that these are issues capitalism and the west also has, everything's just different enough that nobody notices. "Having no food" is nothing more than a stereotype, or at best the situation that happened right before the USSR's collapse which was literally caused by capitalism.
Many of the things he said here aren't even true to begin with. Soviets had similar or even higher quality diets compared to the United States during both countries' golden ages of the 1900s. Using literal stereotypes is not a good argument. Police brutality is also a major problem in western/capitalist countries, and so is imperialism (imperialism was started by capitalism and capitalists, not communists btw). The United States and many other countries also have a terrible track record when it comes to freedom of movement, so even that is just false to an extent. None of the things he says here are true.
"Communism is an aggressive ideology that caused immense suffering across the world. They have their fair share of wars and genocides."
This is an argument anti-communists love to bring up, but usually their numbers are very far off reality. Many books and works against communism are horribly made and usually inflate numbers with unrelated events just to make communism look worse than it actually is.
A great example is "The Black Book of Communism" - this is the book where the very dramatic 100 million death toll comes from that anti-communists use more than they see their friends in real life. This book is completely filled with misinformation and utter bias. As described by Jean-Louis Margolin and Nicolas Werth, two people who helped make the book, the creator of The Black Book of Communism was "obsessed with trying to get the number to 100 million" - this caused his work to be seen as "sloppy and biased scholarship" by his own coworkers.
"Don't even start with "It wasn't real communism." Any communist society has to start authoritarian, as most people don't want to give up their wealth and estates to the state that's gonna badly redistribute it to those who didn't earn it. By supporting communism you are inherently supporting authoritarian regimes, or you're simply very naïve, if you think it's ever gonna leave that stage."
This part proves he has no idea what communism is and how it functions. Laos, a country that officially is a communist state, uses a form of people's democracy (you can read into it yourself). It is very easy to lie if you ignore facts.
Also, those who say "It wasn't real communism" usually believe in the classic communist way of a stateless society - in that case they're right, and usually that is what people mean by "It wasn't real communism".
"Communism should get the same treatment as fascism/Nazism does in our society, the only reason it doesn't is because they were on the winning side of WW2 and there's still a lot of them among us. The main difference between communists and fascists is that the fascists are at least honest in their intentions."
Holy fuck, way to defend actual N@zism. The reason Fascism isn't good is because it is based off of delusions and its main purpose is ultranationalism and a one-race superiority structure, which is destined, WAY more destined than "communism" (Stalin doesn't represent all of communism by the way, the USSR literally began a de-Stalinization process after Stalin's death) to kill millions of people.
Honestly, the way this guy defends N@zism makes me think he may be more extreme than just a regular brainwashed conservative, but no accusations, just suspicions.
"At least in my country we finally got rid of them from our parliament 4 years ago and it doesn't seem like they're coming back. Just so you know, you can have "free" healthcare and education without communism, don't jump to radicalism immediately."
Tf is this even supposed to mean - you can also have capitalism without praising fascism, y'know? What point are you trying to make here? This makes zero sense and feels like he's just saying something for the sake of saying something.
Anyway, I hope you actually learned more from this than whatever misinformation the original blog post left behind. Have a great day, or night if that's your preference!
also don't mind me plugging my group *cough cough* https://groups.spacehey.com/SCSC
Comments
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Comomoth
ffs before you come here with your sob story read the fucking post don't just glance at it
sugarcra$h kat!
with family who died due to starvation from suffering under a communist regime, it might look pretty on paper to you, but my grandfather was a doctor and he made more money selling food on the street than working as a doctor… people did everything to escape communism in my country. for you to come in and say communism is not bad just goes to show that you’ve lived a privileged life.
first of all: which communist regime
second of all: you didn't read my post, at most you just glanced at it
by Comomoth; ; Report
cuba
and yes i just glanced at it bc I assumed you’d be providing the usual argument for communism. It could never work in real life and it’s not even that pretty on paper
by sugarcra$h kat!; ; Report
maybe read my post first before you come back
by Comomoth; ; Report
borka
F communism and all the spoiled little Western kids trying to talk it up or shun people for talking about their real experiences and connections to the dumb ideology.
the only thing being proven here is that you're illiterate and have no idea what you're talking about
by Comomoth; ; Report
chee2k13
i enjoy the idea of communism but i've never been really sure how well it would work. it's one of those things that sounds great on paper but whenever it's been tried to put into practice, some horrible shit happens and it becomes a gateway to dictatorships. i know that that's because of a lot of things though, usually some kind of western intervention or coupe taking place or whatever, and not because of communism itself.
honestly i would love to see some kind of experiment where a country, or just a collection of people, actually try to put communism into practice without any kind of intervention and see how far they get. has anything like that happened?
"has anything like that happened?" --- unfortunately, billionaires in powerful western nations will always get their guns up and destroy it. unless the other capitalist countries get some sense slapped into their face, mass-revolution is basically the only way to achieve communism or even just socialism.
by Comomoth; ; Report
russian winter muhhahaaaa | inactive on SH
“ Communism is an aggressive ideology that caused immense suffering across the world. They have their fair share of wars and genocides." is a statement that people who know and lived through history that involved socialism, WILL bring up. Do you know why? Because it’s true. If you or anyone is living in denial, then we’ll gladly see you in eastern countries like hungary, where you can relive our traumas and our peoples suffering! Maybe research things before you get into defending and romanticizing them. All of you.
nice one, blocking me so I can't see your profile. well, I'm guessing from this you yourself didn't live through socialism or communism at all - maybe you're not even in eastern europe for all I know (but from what you're saying I'm guessing you're from hungary).
have you also noticed the poorest regions are still stuck on warsaw pact/communist tech and equipment from the 1980s (I've been in the poorer parts of the east and balkans multiple times btw)? wow, it's almost like development stopped there after the soviet union collapsed!
and also, maybe some dude named Viktor Orban might be at fault since he's defunding basically everything and actively ruining many Hungarians' lives?
you're blaming everything on communism without seeing any context - pretty ironic for someone telling me to do my research.
by Comomoth; ; Report
cokerrr
Lol. Dude, "Real" communism can't be achieved. Bad people will always get to power and start ruining everything. It doesn't matter how many times it will be tried, it will ALWAYS fail. Real
communism is more of a theory than anything else.
And people like you, have faith in something that is basically impossible. Its the same kind of thing that woke pro islam people believe that if we all just hug and be friend one another, that everything will be good and we all are gonna be living in some paradise. Again, bad people will always exist, and they will do bad things, and for that we need to stick to things that are safer and work, not put all faith into something that will 99.99 percent FAIL.
tf are you on - any ideology could fail if someone bad takes charge.
yk, H*tler was at first elected democratically, but then he turned Germany into a brutal and violent dictatorship.
the USSR was actually supposed to be a democracy at first, but paranoia, WW1 and then Stalin popping in turned it into a dictatorship (until it sort of became more democratic post-stalin times, but full democracy couldn't work because capitalist countries were right at their doorstep).
on the other hand, socialism came to Chile through democracy and elections, but the fucking American government officials and billionaires were such pussies that they couped Chile and turned it into a brutal dictatorship that killed thousands of innocent people.
under the correct circumstances (which isn't the delusional shit you're writing btw), any ideology could work. many socialist nations thrived and true communism would've been achieved if western intervention just never happened - that isn't communism's fault, it's the fault of the "free" capitalist western governments. 99.99% failure rate is bullshit - if conservatives like you actually fucking woke up and voted more left, the "failure" rate would be close to zero because dumbass right-wing government officials would have harder times killing and enslaving people.
especially nowadays in Europe, socialism and communism can have way higher success rates (with Europe becoming more united and European power is now close or even on-par to the US), there just needs to be one person or a group of people to get the ball rolling.
you need to actually look further into factual history and not the bullshit the Trump administration is brainwashing into your head - maybe then you'll realize how communist countries got to certain places.
if the existence of bad people in a country already renders the nation and ideology a "99.99% fail rate", than any sort of human civilization and socialization has a 99.99% fail rate, and the thousands of years of human civilization prove that wrong. the shit you're saying makes no sense.
also, "woke pro islam people" sounds like you're just a delusional indoctrinated conservative, so it doesn't seem like I'm gonna get anything through your head, so consider this convo already over.
by Comomoth; ; Report
Bruh, it doesnt matter that the good person with good intentions wins, sooner or later that will get taken over by a bad person with bad interests and then we will be left off with the exact same issue as before. Communism doesn’t work, because in the long run government having so much power just leads to demise and the government just being more and more strict (Censorship, bannings whatever else to stay IN power). I know what ur trying to suggest but that just isn’t possible.
Also come on dude, the conservative brainwashing thing, i just have my beliefs and i do trust in what i am saying. You don't have to act like a monkey to just disagree with my opinion.
by cokerrr; ; Report
You're so right man
by xXMurderTeddyXx; ; Report
you're falling into the "communism is when government does stuff" hole. y'know, you should probably read a bit more into communism, because none of the stuff you're saying here makes any sense. literally, you're entire point boils down to that hole, which is simply a misconception - read the Communist Manifesto to at least get a start of information, although I'd recommend a lot more.
btw, your "beliefs" come from an echo chamber that promotes nothing but hate to certain groups (muslims, "libtards", foreigners/immigrants, homosexuals and just innocent people in general) - sure, you may not believe in everything, but conservatism itself is just a hateful ideology by design, which is why I strongly oppose it. I'm not acting "like a monkey" at all - but oh well, so much for "facts don't care about your feelings". I'm not banning conservatism or forcing you to do anything, just pointing out the issues.
by Comomoth; ; Report
What? Thats not what i said at all. Communism isn’t just when “government does stuff” its when the government has the right to control everything, the market, the schools, literature, what gets published what doesn’t, society as a whole. And thats bad, because yes, theoretically if there were responsible and good people that would control that government, then there would be no problem. The problem is that thats not going to happen. What you are still describing is a theory. The manifesto itself is just an idea, a what if scenario in which good people control everything and are responsible and are actually FOR the people. But thats never going to happen, because bad people always get in power, and when that happens its over. Say goodbye to free speech, what you want to produce, what you want to buy, where you get to live and how you want to live. Again, i understand you, i agree that if we would live in a world where good people would control everything, they would still allow you to do everything, that you would be able to be just as free as in capitalism, protect us from wars ext. but thats not the world we live in.
by cokerrr; ; Report
Kolya
the entire communist ideology is based off the fairytale idea that politicians aren’t corrupt. as soon as any amount of corruption enters the government the entire system falls apart, there’s labour shortages, people stop working, the government forces people to work random jobs, and then you just have government mandated slavery.
you should probably read more into communism, because true communism hasn't been achieved because capitalist countries will destroy any country that's even slightly socialist (see the Banana War, or Chile's coup d'état where the US created a brutal dictatorship far worse than the socialist government), and "corruption" is mostly a stereotype, not to mention capitalist countries do it far more, they just call it "lobbying" so it seems like only communist countries are corrupt, which just isn't true at all.
by Comomoth; ; Report
Evil Queen
We need a technocracy.
Evil Queen
I get down on my knees for Marx.
tomohaze☆
are we doing "why is "why is "why is X so bad" so bad" so bad" ahh posts now
in all seriousness tho, very fair points. didn't agree with original post either not because of my stance on communism, but the way arguments were presented
issi
that guy tried to tell me that racism in america was over and that black ppl are totally fine now T_T he doesnt even live here
lmfao
by Comomoth; ; Report
Shay
thank you for this, i literally jsut saw the other guys post before this and posted a lengthy comment mentioning some of the stuff u did lol. anyways tahnk u for ur service friend have a good day
NICOGOD5911
Real communism is both social democracy, democratic socialism and socialism with chinese characteristics.
Angel
I agree with some points, specially because he focuses on the effects of communism and not communism itself. I felt a comment regarding why communism is, indeed, bad… but he expressed it in a very awful way, because his argument was not well constructed. I would like to emphasize on the emotional discourse he used, I believe it was unnecessary to make it look like he was speaking from a moral pedestal… and from a deeply traumatic experience that does not only happen in communist states. While I still believe communism is bad (and again, this doesn't mean I stand with communism) these topics need serious discussion, and structured arguments that ara rational and not sensationalist. I, personally, didn't like the way he used the shock value to give his point lf view more weight, instead of exposing why communism is indeed a bad system because of how it ignores the reality and treats humans as archetypes that can't be fulfilled.
Matt XXIct
The discussion is lengthy and a bit old, but I'd like to comment some points. Although you and I, dear author, probably share the same political spectrum, there are two things I wanted to add here, disagreeing somewhat with some of your information (and that of the user quoted).
First of all, the most important: the supposed equivalence between fascism and communism.
The program of each movement must be taken into consideration, starting from its primary sources and, obviously, from its historical experiences. Communism never included in its program: ethnic extermination, racial superiority, ultranationalism, or totalitarianism. Let be honest, the heavyweights of the communist movement advocated the complete opposite, from the abolition of national borders and the end of classes to the end of the State, and, over the years, several communists authors have contributed in their works regarding the issues of race, gender, etc..
The fascism, on the other hand, openly defends authoritarianism and ultranationalism in its program (it is no coincidence that he declared the communist movement an enemy, with Mussolini and Gentille asserting that it represented an overcoming of socialism). Here's the big difference: the communist movement (or at least a serious and responsible communist) does not intend to turn you into an enemy (and yes, that includes the bourgeois individual) nor to establish a global dictatorship. Meanwhile, fascism openly says that you will live under authoritarianism, yes. He will imprison you and your entire country in a present that mirrors the past and prevents the arrival of the future, since authoritarianism does not allow for political renewal, making it impossible for modern political figures to emerge who can meet the demands of society over the years. No, fascism isn't bad because it's "evil," "a wicked villain"—that convinces almost no one (especially not in today's times). Fascism is not open enough to embrace human diversity, unlike communism which, being truly humanist, takes into account our most common characteristic: we are human, we are diverse. We are not equals, but I don't want any master stepping on my head, nor a slave under my feet.
“Don't even start with "It wasn't real communism." Any communist society has to start authoritarian [...] By supporting communism you are inherently supporting authoritarian regimes, or you're simply very naïve, if you think it's ever gonna leave that stage.”
Regarding the authoritarian nature of socialist regimes, We should always ask which countries the user is referring to, as the understanding of each experience can vary depending on the political leaning the communist belongs to. Even worse, some of those countries you have in mind weren't actually dictatorships of the proletariat.
“This part proves he has no idea what communism is and how it functions. Laos, a country that officially is a communist state [...]”
Laos is just as communist as China (sorry, they're both capitalists, lol). The most you can use to refer to Laos is that it's a social democracy.
“Also, those who say "It wasn't real communism" usually believe in the classic communist way of a stateless society - in that case they're right, and usually that is what people mean by "It wasn't real communism'.”
Well, yes, communism is indeed a stateless society. That is basically the goal of the communist movement: the end of the state, which is also the end of capitalism. Let's face it, Marx and Engels erred greatly in semantic matters, but a large part of our mistakes is due to a lack of reading and late access to certain writings by both of them (The German Ideology, for example). The most accurate way to refer to countries like the Soviet Union, even though it is subject to much debate, is as a dictatorship of the proletariat, Since communism itself is only "achieved" once capitalism, this hegemonic mode of production, is globally defeated. No, Marx and Engels never established a difference between socialism and communism as modes of production; for them, the two things imply one and the same (and in fact, there is no difference)
Sorry for the giant comment guys
by Matt XXIct; ; Report
evil_xnijl
read master and margarita
boêmio (hater #1 do minimalismo)
also just a little addition, i suppose that since few countries were communist at the time, it was harder to maintain the system? IF there were a more "balanced" amount between communist and capitalism in the world it could have been easier to maintain the ideology...? this is more of a thought than an affirmation, im no specialist......
I believe that even with a large number of communist countries, the opposition would still be able to convince the global population about the “dangers of communism,” with the large amount of propaganda they used and the various political and social interventions they carried out. As an example, I cite Brazil, my country of origin, which suffered from this same process and became a dictatorship that valued the economic interests of the US, under the justification of blocking communism, even though the country tried its best to remain neutral during the Cold War.
by rosas_e_caninos; ; Report
hm, entendi. obrigado pela explicação!
by boêmio (hater #1 do minimalismo); ; Report
charl13
thank god for this blog post, i saw his post the other day and it pissed me off so bad i immediately stopped browsing blogs for the day.
it drives me crazy when people talk about bread lines under communism because have yall ever been to a food bank under capitalism? ive stared volunteering at my local food bank (alberta, canada) recently and during orientation they said food bank usage has increased DRAMATICALLY in just the last year. they are SWAMPED. you cannot bring up communist bread lines without also bringing up food bank demand under capitalism.
another thing that he said was about communism having "their fair share of wars and genocides". like okay man, but what about the thousands of wars and genocides fought and committed through history on the basis of capital or capitalism? the american revolution? capitalism. the vietnam war? capitalism. the korean war? capitalism. the current ongoings in palestine? capitalism. i'm not a huge war guy so i cant think of many more off the top of my head, but almost every war throughout history (at the very least in the last 300 years) has been fought for capitalist interests. and the black book of communism oh my god. people using that as a source to "prove" the evils of communism clearly have no idea what they're talking about, because that book includes every nazi killed in ww2 (because the USSR was fighting against them, so obviously they must be innocent victims of communism (can you hear my eyes rolling?)), as well as the hypothetical children that MAY have been born "if not for communism".
ive never been great at conclusions LMAO your article was great, im so glad that guy's nonsense is being debunked by people who actually know what theyre talking about.
oh my god i did not mean for my comment to be that long TT
by charl13; ; Report
OH MY GOD THANK YOU, like, every time i volunteer at a food bank here in the united states, it's nearly empty from a lack of donations and such a high need for food
by ☆ kira ☆; ; Report
Snowball
Why is everyone in this forum so like emotionally attached to their ideology istg like bro I cannot go and see a normal post with someone feeling brutally offended lmao
eh, it's the politics section, defending your ideology and discussing it with others is kinda the whole point
by Comomoth; ; Report
its a damn snoozefest here
by Jonas; ; Report
Zigzag Buster 🇺🇦
I’m a proponent of mixed economics. Neither pure capitalism nor pure socialism is sustainable. There has to be a balance that can actually make an economy work. Red Son Superman had the right idea.
I respect centrism, but this post was more to call out the flaws in this person's blog post.
by Comomoth; ; Report