Talk:Communism/Archive 11

Impossibility of Communism

Maybe there should be a section on the impossiblity of communism, and the fact that no country ever achieved true communism. Although we call the Chinese Communists and USSR communists, they're are all actually socialist. If a state was truly communist, America wouldn't even need to fight the state because they'd throw flowers at us.

You should understand that achieving communism is a struggle and a long term process that socialist states who have communist parties undertake. Please do not edit this article. Humbabba 01:14, 31 March 2007 (UTC)

        technically, the ussr and china are/were not socialist, either. they were totalitarian governments in disguise as socialism or communism. but from what i've heard, china has gotten more deomcratic since the 80s.

(ZomG he didn't capitalize letters, don't take his comment seriously!)

Only Austrians claim communism/socialism is impossible. Most other economists just believe it's very difficult.JoeCarson 00:09, 17 May 2007 (UTC)

This is a matter of personal opinion, not fact, many people, such as myself, believe it is possible, perhaps something should be added on the difference between communist countries and stalinist countries such as the USSR and China —Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.189.133.20 (talk) 03:33, 9 September 2007 (UTC)

Komutan Coşkucan Özkul

I'm a trockist but I don't know English good enough to write academically. Please work on it to develop. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 85.99.236.152 (talk) 06:41, 14 April 2007 (UTC).

Communism by nationality

Is there an article on that subject - a parent article to Polish communism, Communism in Colombia, or Category:Communism in the United Kingdom? Subjects such as Communism in Germany, Communism in France, etc. are certainly notable.-- _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus | talk}  04:17, 7 April 2007 (UTC)

Does not seem correct

Communism is an ideology that seeks to establish a classless, stateless social organization based on common ownership of the means of production.

common ownership of the means of production.

I thought that was socialism. Communism means no personal property. Xavier cougat 17:06, 30 May 2007 (UTC)

Common ownership is the opposite of personal property. There is no contradiction. --Duncan 21:52, 30 May 2007 (UTC)

But in this article it states 'common ownership of means of production' to me that is socialims. Communism means common ownership of almost everything. Xavier cougat 12:32, 31 May 2007 (UTC)

Socialism and Communism are not chemical elements: there is not precise definition of where they differ that is commonly accepted. Often, the same ideas are descrived using the same terms: some people, including Lenin, refuised to call themselves Socialist because of the crisis of the socialist parties. Others refuse to call themselves communist because of the work of the Communist parties. Certainly, Socialism has more meanings, in that - for example - many people in the US might think of Canada as being socialist. Not all definitions of socialism involve the common ownwership of the means of production. However, and unlike the difference socialisms, all notions of communist involve the common ownership of the means of production and a classless society. --Duncan 07:54, 1 June 2007 (UTC)

No I disagree there should be a precise definition. A sociologist I believe would want that so to claim scientific credibility. Yes we can mention the commonly used usage. But I do believe there is a precise scientific, academic definition. In communism there is muss less private ownership than in socialism. Now to call Canada socialist is simply wrong. Actully I think Communism might be a subset of socialism. Xavier cougat 14:03, 1 June 2007 (UTC)

I think we understand each other's views. If you want to find some references, then please do being some back to the talk page. I think you're broadly right to view communist as a subset of socialism. That means you cannot define socialism as not being communism, and more than you can say that fruits are not oranges. --Duncan 18:43, 1 June 2007 (UTC)

I think it already has been sourced. I really am not going to change it unless someone else is with me. Now socialism is not communism. No more than mammals are dogs. Fruit does not = orange. If you have trouble with that concept I can see there is no need to go on. It really isnt worth it to me. Xavier cougat 19:10, 1 June 2007 (UTC)

I don't think Communism necessarily means the abolition of "personal property".

If one looks at the way the matter is treated by Marx and Engels, on the one hand, Marx and Engels say: "The distinguishing feature of communism is not the abolition of property generally, but the abolition of bourgeois property. But modern bourgeois private property is the final and most complete expression of the system of producing and appropriating products that is based on class antagonisms, on the exploitation of the many by the few.

In this sense, the theory of the Communists may be summed up in the single sentence: Abolition of private property." Communist Manifesto.

But this is quite different to the acquisition under communism of personal possessions "that leaves no surplus wherewith to command the labor of others":

"What, therefore, the wage laborer appropriates by means of his labor merely suffices to prolong and reproduce a bare existence. We by no means intend to abolish this personal appropriation of the products of labor, an appropriation that is made for the maintenance and reproduction of human life, and that leaves no surplus wherewith to command the labor of others."

But addressing the bourgoisie, they say

"You are horrified at our intending to do away with private property. But in your existing society, private property is already done away with for nine-tenths of the population; its existence for the few is solely due to its non-existence in the hands of those nine-tenths. You reproach us, therefore, with intending to do away with a form of property, the necessary condition for whose existence is the non-existence of any property for the immense majority of society.

In one word, you reproach us with intending to do away with your property. Precisely so; that is just what we intend." Andysoh 21:56, 3 June 2007 (UTC)

How many people was killed by comunism?

How many people was killed in the years of comunism? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 85.18.29.226 (talk • contribs) 13:39, June 12, 2007

Thats a very unfair question to ask, given that a lot of people also include communists killed by other people, for example the death toll under Stalin was 42 million people in the USSR, what is not said however is that 28 million of those were killed by the Nazis. Also it is key to remember that millions of others who died were not "rounded up and shot" as we are commonly lead to believe. The majority died in famine which is understandable. Russia is rather cold with poor growing conditions and China has A LOT of people to feed. - ErnestownMarxist

Stalin's death toll ranges start at over 20 million and to my knowledge no estimate includes those killed by Nazi's in World War II. The estimates figure starvation, executions, those who died in work camps, and some include deaths in wars which were started by the government itself. Some estimates do include wartime executions such as the Soviets execution of several thousand Polish officers during World War II.

Andysoh adds: I expect these arguments have been gone over endlessly in the archives of this article and others, but in addition to the points made above in relation to Russia, during the civil war after the October 1917 revolution, the White armies slaughtered the "revolting peasants" (and also the Jews) whereever they re-conquered territory, as they re-imposed their previous feudal property rights and drove the peasants off their land (and "taught them a lesson") as any good historian will attest, and were supported by invasions by the USA, UK and France, and possibly other countries (i think japan?), leaving aside Germany. There was a complete embargo of trade resulting in starvation and the complete dislocation of the economy, down to 5% of pre-war output. These two things destroyed the remnants of the possibility of socialism in Russia and what emerged afterwards was not communism, as even Lenin and Trotsky said. The Russian revolution took place in the slaughter of the first world war and the Russian revolution ended the war since Russia then immediately sued for peace, and Germany and the allies and germany all invaded Russia.

Then if one counts the dead in Vietnam, Cambodia, and Laos as a result of the Vietnam war, one cannot ignore the dead as a result of the USA's invasion, and once again the effect of the US illegal bombing on Cambodia was, I think, to massively destabilise it, with the Pol Pot regime, which no sane persion would describe as socialist or communist, arising as a result. Andysoh 20:41, 13 June 2007 (UTC)

Why was that section removed from the article it does not appear anywhere within the communism articles. There used to be a great little chart some months back which included a list of estimates of those who died under communism from starvations or executions. Why was that deleted?

By the way, the bombing was not illegal; it was sanctioned by the non-communist faction of Cambodia and was targeting the Vietnamese INVADED territory of Cambodia which was sparely populated forests. Often people trying to make this illegal attack argument conveniently ignore the fact that North Vietnam were the ones who illegally invaded the country. Estimates of millions dead are over-blown fantasies. However, despite such delusions pseudo-capitalist states cannot match the death toll that communism has wracked up.

Pol Pots regime did not arise as a result of blowing up the forests, it resulted because the U.S. congress eliminated or reduced its commitment to fighting communism in Asia. Unsupported revisionist history is not welcome here, a good reason why the death toll by communism chart should be returned.

The main reason those "Killed by communism" is not included because they blame a lot of factors unrelated to Communism, War, Natural deaths, while 454,000 died in the Labour camp system, with over 50% during the height of WW2 some of these deaths to natural causes or illnesses such as heart attack, cancer and so on. Some authors make up number on the spot, such as Robert Conquest whos claims are all "estimates" with no methodology. Estimates made up at random are not encyclopedic. And many would argue why don't we include a chart of those killed by capitalism, Slave society, Fuedalism, by the British Empire, by the United States Government? And from your post, it sounds like you serve an ideological bias against communism and are not looking for a neutral point of view.--CmrdMariategui 17:14, 17 June 2007 (UTC)

Right and undocumented claims with no scientific bases for death by American bombing of Cambodia serves no ideological purpose. What you don't understand is that the system, communism, always and will always result in shortages or surpluses because they do not allow the market to reach equilibrium. In the case of food products, the most likely outcome is food shortages, which is exactly what happened. The famines that killed millions in communist countries was not bad luck, it was the result of communist policy which created an artificial shortage of food. The starvation of millions was no accident, the fault falls squarely on communism itself. The numbers are in the millions and more than triple the amount of people killed by the Nazi's...these numbers do not even have to include deaths by execution or communist instigated wars. PS, you made a lot of that up, there is a methodology to the estimates of death by communism. Estimates are estimates, and you should not delete something so important as that...afterall the exclusion of such material only shows your own ideological bias (and perhaps embarrassment).

If you want to include such articles, first campaign to list a death tolls under the capitalist system, from food shortages because people cannot afford to eat to preventable diseases to terrorism,(yes Osama Bin Laden is a capitalist) to famine due to overusing soil, to not producing food because trying to increase prices, to the kids who never got help because he was too poor and started to shoot up a school to those who died in ww1 and ww2 because germans and british wanted to increase profits and the other was standing in their way, to the scape goats who were blamed for the problems of capitalism and had been wiped out, to those who died under apartheid conditions which was promoted by capitalists as you had a class of people who were super exploited thus driving down wages, to those who died under colonial oppression to bring cheap labour and resources to the capitalists. To those who died on the job, to those to lose their arms on the job, to those who were assassinated for organizing a Union, to those who died because they weren't worth enough to save. Then add up that number and tell me what you get. we might also want to examine the difference in quality and quantity of life before and after socialism, death rate mysteriously lowered post capitalism. So maybe we should subtract those who didn't die, those kids who had a chance to go to school, a chance to eat, or go to the doctor. And all while that including real numbers, Which exist nowadays after the soviet archives were openned. Rather than fake numbers by robert conquest and others. --CmrdMariategui 21:51, 17 June 2007 (UTC)

Silliness,there is no such thing as a food shortage in a true free market capitalism system. Food is readily available because demand is met by supply through the price system. Even if we count instances of food shortages and "starvation" due to government intrusion into a capitalist market, the death by starvation in no way shape or form dares to rival the death and starvation which people suffered under communism. 1) Apartheid and segregation are government programs, not capitalist ones. In fact in the United States segregation was originally opposed by capitalists who sought to increase their profits by preventing mandatory segregation. Imperialism is the result of government intrusion in the economy and politics. It is a fault of the government not capitalism. As we've seen communist countries were more than capable of imperialism, conquest, and subjugation. Blind adherence to your revisionist history won't get you anywhere. Though I would love to challenge you people to a real political test, your system versus my system and lets see what really happens.

A count of people killed by capitalism would have to go back to the 18th century at least in Europe, since that is when it is generally considered to have become politically dominant in Britain and other countries. Mike Davis (scholar) has written an interesting book about the culpability of global capitalism for human tragedies during 1876-1902, Late Victorian Holocausts. Grant | Talk 02:05, 18 June 2007 (UTC)

Unfortunately for this shortsighted analysis, an example such as "Victoria's Secret" where she kept food supplies from the Irish, was not a fault of capitalism itself, but extensive government control over the economic production of foodstuff and a lack of property rights for the Irish population. Like most criticism of capitalism, the blame is falsely laid on capitalism, when it should be more properly laid upon government intrusion into capitalism. Another famous, though no less ignorant analysis, is to argue that capitalism, specifically free markets, allowed or created European imperialism over Asia, Africa, and the America's. An absurd argument for anyone who understands what free markets are. If a government commands a distant population into producing, selling, and consuming, you do not have a free market. Again, the blame lies on government not free market capitalism. If anything, "death by capitalism" or exploitation, is more aptly described as "corporatism" which is more akin to socialism with semi-private markets.

By the way, be my guest, add a "Death by Capitalism" section I am all in favor of showing all sides of an argument, no matter how big of a straw man one has created. But remember I'll come back and expect a "Death by Communism" section to return to this article. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.97.17.2 (talk • contribs) June 18, 2007

I knew you'd come up with that old rib-tickler; it's an amusing idea, that capitalism could function without centralised coercion (i.e. the state) to enforce property laws, inter alia. Grant | Talk 10:19, 18 June 2007 (UTC)

If it's OK to bring up dysfunctional Stalinist/Maoist communism in this context, surely it's OK to bring up dysfunctional Victorian, fascist, or Nixonian capitalism? Grant | Talk 10:24, 18 June 2007 (UTC)

Noone was killed by the theory of capitalism, these people were killed by Capitalism, the ecomonic system which scientifically exists. You cannot say you are a supporter of capitalism and not accept the contradictions which exist in the system. If you ignore these contradictions you can only claim you follow the Religion of Capitalism.

Why is there no mention of those killed by the spread of communism? Surely, all those killed by the forced starvations (aka, Ukraine, China, Russia, the list goes on....), bombings (aka, Italy), invasions (Afghanistan), gulags (Russia, North Korea, China), and revolutions warrant -some- mention. Also, I don't know who said that only 435,000 were killed in the work camp system, but that's absoloute bull-sh*t. I would challenge you to find any estimates that support that, outside of some neo-communist website. I am personally insulted that no mention is given at all of those killed by communism, my uncle died in Vietnam, my grandmother's family in one of Stalin's gulags, and my father's family was thrown out of Cuba by Castro. Cronos2546 19:15, 16 July 2007 (UTC)Cronos2546

A lovely story of a wish for personal revenge, but it is irrelivant... capitalism and communism are theories, how many people have died from the spread of capitalism? how many people were left homeless, how many people are in guantanimo bay prison? would you count all those who died in the Dresden bombings? And if we are not talking only about death, but people being kicked out of countries, lets consider the number of people kicked out of the United States per year because they mentioned on their green card forms that they were a member of a communist party? How about those people killed by the lack of total finacial equality, as in, everyone ever killed for money? You can't find a number for the amount of people killed by a theory. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.189.133.20 (talk) 03:45, 9 September 2007 (UTC)

Those people wern't killed by Communism, there were killed by nations claiming to be so. Nations that anyone that knows what they're taking about would realise were not in fact communist. Zazaban 04:05, 9 September 2007 (UTC)

Around 100 millions. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 201.56.112.44 (talk) 18:59, 7 October 2007 (UTC)

Conversion of the communists; Boris Yeltsin had a Christian Rite of Burial

a great sub heading would be the conversion of communists to Christianity from Boris Yeltsin to Vlad Putin. Also the children of the great atheist leaders, Stalin's daughter, Svetlana, Kruschevs sons, Gorbachev's children...it's hilarious. & let us not forget the jewish burial for one of Stalin's henchmen, Lazar Kaganovich. According to Sebag Montefiore in his book Stalin: The Court of the Red Tsar, ISBN-10: 1400076781 Zioniev one of the troika that mercelessly murdered Christians when it was his turn to fall into the atheist killing machine cried out "Hear, O Israel: the Lord our God is one Lord". The jewish NKVD agents who killed Zioniev regaled Stalin with the story and put much emphasis on Zioniev's jewish accent complete to the rolling of the rrr's.

The book is an eye opener. Unsigned comment.

That would be rather marginal for an article on Communism, but could fit some article on Christianity in the USSR.--Duncan 07:27, 13 July 2007 (UTC)

Soviet Banner

This is my first time posting a comment on Wikipedia, and frankly it might not belong here. This is in regards to the image under the communism banner; I believe it to be a derisive and inappropriate banner for articles based on this school of thought for the following reasons. First, the image of the hammer and cycle, while the banner of the (arguably) most famous Marxist nation in history, also represents, in the minds of may people, authoritarianism and oppression, thusly it becomes a negative communicative act, in that the image characterizes the whole of Marxism, as supportive of the policies of the Soviet Union (the aforementioned country). However the Soviet paradigm was drastically different from Marx’s vision, in that firstly that nation was perpetually mired in the dictatorship of the proletariat stage, never making an effort to abolish the state or indeed class. Secondly it is my contention that there are many other images which could, and should be used, (a photo of Marx?) which are not as derisive and do not encourage a, frankly, incorrect view of communism as a school of thought. Thusly because the current image represents a negative communicative act, which inherently goes against the “NPOV” ideal of Wikipedia, and since there are many images which comply with NPOV, in that they do not conjure biased thoughts/images, I believe that the image should be changed. I will also post this on the main communism page.

Firstly, please don't edit anything on the article page just yet. Secondly, The hammer and sickle, while used by the USSR isn't only used by those who liked the USSR. It is a image that represents the union of the industrial workers and the peasants. I don't think that any image of Marx would be a good thing for the banner, as the communism serious also includes anarcho-communism. While I understand (I think) your point of view, I disagree. ~AFA ^{Imagine I swore.} 21:45, 2 April 2007 (UTC)

Soviet Banner

By that same token, religious communism is also bunched in this series; I hardly think that the hammer and cycle is appropriate for that movement. Indeed with so many schools of thought lumped into this series, any image might be inappropriate; indeed grouping these schools of thought grouped together in a series might be inappropriate. In any case I strongly urge someone to either change or remove the current banner image, which is associated irrevocably with the Soviet Union, in favor of a less derisive image or, better yet, no image. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 143.88.169.0 (talk) 04:48, 6 April 2007 (UTC).

The Hammer and Sickle

I think that the image with the hammer and sickle should be removed from the series' image, as it is only a symbol of the communist party under the soviet union and not of communism itself.

82.92.205.56 12:05, 20 June 2007 (UTC)

However it is commonly seen as a symbol of communism because of what the hammer and sickle stands for. The union of labourer and farmer, of the working class ruling the government. That's why it's such a fitting symbol. -ErnestownMarxist