Like Soviet Union, PRC, DPRK, Viet Nam? From my understanding these weren't/aren't really ruled by the people but by a wealth(ier) elite, they use systems of money, have (limited) private property, etc.
Which, imo, is capitalism or (its friendlier variant) socialism (which has some communist features like universal healthcare for example), but is not communism.
Isn't the goal of communism supposed to be anarchist communism (no state [government], also no rich/poor divide)? Where nothing is owned, either by the state or by individuals?
I didn't think statism is compatible with communism.
tl;dr: Everything you just typed out was wrong.
No, states cannot exist under Communism. Communism is a classless, stateless, moneyless, post-scarcity socioeconomic system without any contradictions inherent to itself. Chiefly, it is organized along the lines of "From each according to their ability...". Those nations that you listed do not, or in the case of the USSR did not, claim to have achieved Communism. No nation has ever achieved Communism. The closest thing the world has ever seen to Communism was primitive Communism in pre-agrarian societies.
Socialism is, by no means, the "friendlier variant" of Capitalism. You may be confusing Socialism with a Social Democracy, which is the system that the Nordic countries operate under and is the ideology of one Bernie Sanders. The nations that you listed have/had never achieved Socialism either. Socialism a.k.a lower phase Communism, can be characterized by 6 main things:
- The complete abolition of capital (moneyless)
- The complete abolition of classes (classless)
- The complete abolition of wage labor
- The state has become a vestigial organ of society and begins to wither away (stateless)
- The complete abolition of the world market (global dominance, Socialism & Communism are global ordeals and cannot be achieved in one area or nation)
- The mode of distribution is a worker planned economy
What the nations you listed have/had achieved is known as the Dictatorship of the Proletariat. I know dictatorship might be a scary word to you, but all that means is the political and economic domination of the proletariat class. It doesn't mean an actual dictatorship. Right now, assuming you don't live in one of the nations that you listed, you live under a Dictatorship of the Bourgeoise, because you live under the political and economic domination of the bourgeoise class. A Dictatorship of the Proletariat isn't as simple as Socialism, and CAN be characterized by (though not necessarily all) 8 things:
- The ongoing abolition and suppression of capital
- The workers seize the means of production and the MOP are owned by the worker directly or indirectly via the state under a principled Communist party
- The ongoing abolition of wage labor
- Bourgeois state is smashed and replaced with self-organized workers (with guns! the worker's state)
- The ongoing abolition of classes
- The ongoing abolition of the world market
- Acts as a transformational period between Capitalism and Communism
- No strict distinguished mode of production, can look like many different things
All nations that have a DOTP should be supported by all self-prorupted Communists. End sentence. I don't care what you heard from your CIA-approved news source about the PRC genociding Muslims or terrorizing innocent Hong Kong protestors. The reason that the nations you listed that are still around today have limited private property is for survival purposes only (DPRK doesn't by the way). When the USSR was illegally dissolved in 1991, the nations that were supported by the USSR had 2 choices: market reforms, or death by sanction. To not open up and allow some level or private property would have resulted in the deaths of COUNTLESS in Cuba, Vietnam, and Laos. This was the cause of a famine in the 90's in the DPRK.
The state is a necessity in achieving Communism, lest we let the power of the bourgeois state crush our Socialist projects with the snap of its fingers. The state holds a monopoly on political violence and repression, which in a Capital-dominated nation are used against Socialist projects on a day-to-day basis. We, as principled Communists, take the state, flip it upside down by establishing a DOTP, and repress the bourgeoise class out of existence. By the way, Anarchists want states too - you special folks just like to call it by different names. I don't care how libertarian and horizontal your democratic militia fighting force is, it's still an appendage of whatever democratic system your running your commune under. Democracy is incompatible with Anarchism, Democracy requires a state. Those labor camps that the CNT-FAI used to imprison fascists were totally stateless and nonhierarchical, right? The political repression of the Bolsheviks under the bandit king Makhno was totally stateless and democratic, right? No. Wrong. The only difference is, in our state the hierarchy is official and accountable, yours is not.
In conclusion, reject your Anarchistic idealism, read State and Rev by Lenin, embrace Marxism. Ask me questions if you want I'll probably answer them. Bye.
By the way, Anarchists want states too - you special folks just like to call it by different names. I don’t care how libertarian and horizontal your democratic militia fighting force is, it’s still an appendage of whatever democratic system your running your commune under. Democracy is incompatible with Anarchism, Democracy requires a state. Those labor camps that the CNT-FAI used to imprison fascists were totally stateless and nonhierarchical, right? The political repression of the Bolsheviks under the bandit king Makhno was totally stateless and democratic, right? No. Wrong. The only difference is, in our state the hierarchy is official and accountable, yours is not.
In conclusion, reject your Anarchistic idealism, read State and Rev by Lenin, embrace Marxism. Ask me questions if you want I’ll probably answer them. Bye.
What a stupid pile of shit lol
hose labor camps that the CNT-FAI used to imprison fascists were totally stateless and nonhierarchical, right?
Those were filled with the fascists that fucking ATTACKED the CNT-FAI (who btw later went on to be a part of the actual state - which is why they're criticised by anarchists too)
The political repression of the Bolsheviks under the bandit king Makhno was totally stateless and democratic, right?
The political repression of the Bolsheviks that came as an answer to the political repression of the makhnovists? Yes they were democratic?
What the fuck is a state according to you?
Seriously the first half of the post is good but of course you have to turn this all into sectarian predatory agenda pushing, seriously, fuck off.
When the USSR was illegally dissolved in 1991, the nations that were supported by the USSR had 2 choices: market reforms, or death by sanction. To not open up and allow some level or private property would have resulted in the deaths of COUNTLESS in Cuba, Vietnam, and Laos. This was the cause of a famine in the 90’s in the DPRK.
And all that coming after this, lol.
When anarchists take measures for their own survival = bad When communists take measures for their own survival = good
Anarchists imprisoning people who attacked them in the strongest sense of the word and communists imprisoning people who wrote mean pamphlets about Lenin is not the same measures at all.
All that happened after the Bolsheviks started to suppress anarchists but go off.
OP was just saying it’s an example that it wasn’t stateless.
How it wasn't stateless? General assemblies decided who to send there and for how much time,
Take that as you will but there is a basis for things like the CCP in Marxist orthodoxy, and looking at their middle class it’s fairly compelling
Looking at the middle class, and more importantly, the objective standard of living of the people. For all of Mao's impressive achievements, he was not able to deliver the sort of rapid increase in living standards that China saw after Deng's reforms.
These states also have to deal with a siege by capitalist powers and have to focus on their own defense. If they dissolved the state, they would be taken over by capitalist powers.
Any socialist state needs to have a means of defending itself against reactionary intervention, whether domestic or international.
The US and other capitalist powers have shown that they will always attempt to intervene to prevent socialism from developing.
My main issue with Anarchism as an ideology is that it doesn't really provide an adequate answer for the question of self defense.
Capitalism is private ownership of the means of production. Socialism is the workers owning the means of production. The USSR started as socialism, but since you can't really build socialism in a backwards, undeveloped economy, it eventually degraded into a deformed workers state.
They still did not have private ownership of the means of production, so it was not capitalist, state or otherwise.
The best example of actual state capitalism is of course China.
— Honey! It's time for your AES struggle session of the day.
— Communist memes pls.
The idea of a ruling class kind of flies out the window when there arent relations of production in place to create a propertied class. Power from above comes from wealth, which ultimately lies in the means of production. Government workers in the USSR, etc. were paid the salary of an average person, and at that in the USSR at least, business ownership, landlording, etc. were all prohibitied, preventing the accumulation of wealth by any single group that could then be used for a corporate raid of the government and the enforcement of elite interests unto society as a whole. Essentially, by eliminating private ownership and the class contradictions it brings, everyone including members of government were roughly within the prole/peasant classes, ensuring members of govt had similar class interests as the rest of the pop. If the "rulers" have no interest contrary to society's as a whole, then there shouldnt be much of an issue.
Basically, only through a private ownership system that generates propertied classes can a system of OPPRESSION truly form (oppression = propertied classes coerce interests unto masses), whereas the states seen in AES are instead those of SUPPRESSION (=masses forcing interests unto propertied classes, thereby liquidating these classes). These states did achieve an admirable status of socialism, having in a large part elimated class barriers through the measures i mentioned (no private bussiness ownership). A state may be contrary to FULLCOMMUNISM, but is neccessary until the contradiction of imperialism is resolved, in order protect the gains of revolutions against countries that wish to feed reaction.
