Why did communism always turn into a kind of dictatorship?
Why did communism always turn into a kind of dictatorship?
Afaik this happened with every single instance of a communist country. Communism seems like a pretty good idea on the surface, but then why does it always become autocratic?
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My take on it from the theory is that most advocates say that you have to go through a period of single party socialism before the state somewhat fades away and it becomes communism.
I don't think it's actually possible in reality for a single party state to cede the power back to the people afterwards.
Yea its called vanguardism, where a "vanguard party" takes total control and then tries to estsblish communism, and once that is acheived, the state "withers away".
Yea thats not gonna work in real life. Why ever give up power once you have it?
This is kinda off topic so I'm putting it in a reply to myself like a weirdo, but despite being something of an anarchist / left-libertarian in mindset... I don't actually think most people are capable of living in a world where someone isn't ordering them around. Many people need and crave a power hierarchy, and if they were ever gifted some kind of anarchist utopia by way of magic they'd likely form up another hierarchy based system all over again from scratch.
This is what actually got me banned from lemmy.ml. I said that although Communism can be done in a ML way, it has never actually happened because it has never actually be a revolution by the people. In the case of Russia and the places they influenced, it was a group of self-appointed elites that did the actual revolting, and then they imposed a new system on the populace.
In all of my debates with those types they always see shadowy conspiracies preventing Americans from having real actual communism....whereas I see that nobody in this country -- especially in this country -- would vote for a communist.
The US spent 60 years actively treating Communists as enemies of the state and propagandizing against them. There's no need to talk about shadows and conspiracies. The capitalist and political elite were very open about it.
There's multiple elements to why people won't vote for a communist, but they still won't.
Certainly state actions play a role, and communists were victims of free speech violations in a much realer sense than victims of "cancel culture" ever were.
In the case of Russia and the places they influenced, it was a group of self-appointed elites that did the actual revolting, and then they imposed a new system on the populace.
What on earth are you talking about? How would "a group of self-appointed elites" even be enough to overthrow the government? That fundamentally doesn't make any sense.
It's also whitewashing the Tsar. As if the Russian people were happy and content while they were starving and subject to serfdom and being fed into the meat grinder of WWI.
Hell, Lenin is even on record saying that Russia wasn't going to have a revolution, before it did, and by the time he arrived in Russia, the Tsar had already been forced to abdicate!
The Marxist theory of the State is as an instrument of class oppression, not all forms of government. The idea is that the Proletariat, after destroying the Capitalist State and replacing it with a Proletarian State, this "dictatorship of the proletariat" will gradually fold Private Property into the Public Sector after markets cease to be an effective tool for developing and Public Ownership and Central Planning becomes more effective.
This happens unevenly, and there are different points where some sectors can be publicly owned much earlier than others, so this doesn't happen overnight. Once all property is in the Public Sector, there are no more classes, and thus all instruments that protected against the bourgeoisie become superfluous and "dies out," leaving a stateless, classless society with central planning. Engels calls this the "administration of things."
That's a type. It's what Russian Communism developed into. Not all Communist theory says you need to get rid of the state either, that's Chinese Communism.
There's even Communist theory that includes a thriving democracy.
Not all Communist theory says you need to get rid of the state either, that’s Chinese Communism.
...
And?
Communism requires no state, no class, and no money. So, yes, all communist theory calls for the abolishment of the state.
Lmao. No.
That's literally the definition of communism.
That's the definition of one kind of communism.
Its literally the communism described by Marx, which, is, by nature, THE Definition of what communism is: https://web.archive.org/web/20090605001014/http://www.economictheories.org/2009/05/full-communism-ultimate-goal.html
This might be news to you but it's not the mid to late 1800's anymore. Marx is about as relevant as Locke.
Might be news to you, but the US's "definition" of communism is about as relevent as the US's definition of "leftism"...
So, yes, the definition of what "communism"... It's best to go to the source of the word, and what the talked about it meaning, rather than Joe McCarthy.
That's hilarious, you're the first one to talk about American anything in this thread. I specifically used Chinese and Russian Communist ideology.