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Communism in theory vs in practice
(lemmy.ml)
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this post was submitted on 15 Mar 2025
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This isn't true, actually. AES states are democratic, you should read Soviet Democracy by Pat Sloan.
Northern European countries aren't role models, either. They depend on Imperialism to fund their safety nets, and are dictatorships of the Bourgeoisie, hence why their safety nets are declining.
They are adhering to Marxism, I am curious why you say they aren't, and if you are getting that from Marx, or second-hand interpretations of Marx. I don't want to get into the rest of your comment until we get past the part where you think there's such thing as a "true communism" that, say, the PRC is not genuinely working towards.
We weren't talking about the Russian Federation, but Soviet Union. The RF is Capitalist, sure, but the USSR was absolutely Socialist.
As for the PRC, it is Socialist, and does follow what Marx described. Are you getting this from actually reading Marx, or second-hand?
For starters, Marx described the economy of a post-revolutionary state to nationalize the large trusts and gradually fold the smaller firms once they get large enough. This is mentioned many times, from the Manifesto of the Communist Party, to my favorite concise explanation in Engels' Principles of Communism:
The PRC mirrors this. The vast majority of large firks are under public control, and the vast majority of the private sector is made up of self-employed people or small firms. If the CPC attempted to forcibly acquire them without letting them develop, they would be committing an error by Marxist standards, unless they truly had good reason.
Key industries like finance and steel are publicly owned as well, if you control the rubber factory you control the rubber ball factory without needing to own it directly.
What would you have the PRC do instead?
Someone who's so ignorant of geopolitics that they don't know about the fall of the USSR should not be so arrogant
Given your demonstrable lack of knowledge about the basics, you shouldn't be trying to opine on that kind of thing.
Again, we were talking about the Soviet Union. You misunderstood and pivoted to the Russian Federation without telling anyone, but if you go up the comment chain the original comment was about the Soviet Union. Anyways...
Marxism - The overarching family of Marxist tendencies chategorized by Dialectical and Historical Materialism, Scientific Socialism, and Marx's Law of Value.
Leninism - The term for the specific strategic and tactical advancements of Lenin upon Marxism, such as analysis of Imperialism, the Vanguard party platform, national liberation in the Global South, and much more.
Marxism-Leninism - The subset of Marxism that accepts Lenin's contributions and upholds AES. By far the most common form of Marxism.
Stalinism - usually a reference to support for Socialism in One Country over Permanent Revolution.
Either way, you're entirely wrong about what led the USSR to dissolve, and the nature of its economic model.
The USSR was Socialist, because Public Ownership was primary in the economy. The Proletariat controlled the Means of Production through the public sector. Marx was not an advocate for decentralization, but centralization over time as large industry formed and could and must be planned centrally.
The USSR dissolved for numerous reasons adding up, some of the larger reasons were the liberal economic reforms of Gorbachev and later Yeltsin, as well as needing to spend a much larger portion of their GDP on the millitary to keep parity with the US.
Your central argument is genuinely that the Workers in the Soviet Union, despite being taught Marxism in school, were too stupid to realize that they were not living in a Marxian system. This is wrong on both fronts, the Soviet citizens had a much better understanding of Socialism as people living in it, and the system itself did follow Marxist principles.
The State is the only method for which all of property can be held in public. "Statelessness" refers to the stage in upper-Communism where all property is publicly owned, and the elements that reinforce class society like armies and private property rights no longer have any reason to exist. Government will continue to exist even in Communism, as will social workers, yet this would be considered "stateless" by Marx as the oppressive elements of government whither away by virtue of having no reason to exist.
I recommend checking out my introductory Marxist-Leninist reading list, as you certainly have a confused understanding of Historical Materialism and Scientific Socialism.
We were talking about the Soviet Union, that's the one the original commenter said wasn't democratic and that's the one I responded to. You disagreed with my comment, but without actually pivoting the conversation to the RF at all, just assuming we were talking about the RF and not the USSR.
Either way, the Soviet Union was Socialist. It was not a divergence from Marxism or Marxism-Leninism, the foundations of the economy were in public ownership of the Means of Production. "Stalinism" generally refers to advocacy for Socialism in One Country as opposed to Permanent Revolution, not the entire economic foundations of the Soviet Union.
The Proletariat owned the Means of Production through the Public Ownership model. This is Marxism not from Stalin, not from Lenin, but Marx and Engels themselves. Marx was not an Anarchist that wanted decentralization, rather, Marx advocated for full centralization of the Means of Production.
I recommend checking out my introductory Marxist-Leninist reading list, as you certainly have a confused understanding of Historical Materialism and Scientific Socialism.