A thread like this is the conversational equivalent of everyone marching in wearing their overshoes and opening their raincoats to reveal that they are wearing nothing underneath. It's not a pretty sight.
On Tue, Nov 17, 2015 at 7:57 PM, knarf <[email protected]> wrote: > "They called themselves Communists." > > The former East Germany called themselves the German Democratic Republic. > What's in a name? > > "Lenin was the orthodox Marxist." > > At the risk of oversimplification, Lenin was about the Party, and > centralizing power. I suspect he may have considered that a necessary interim > measure but he did that. There's a reason they called it "Marxist-Leninist"; > he changed marxism . > > "Mao was an orthodox Marxist." > > He was just an evil totalitarian dictator. He used Marxist-Leninist jargon > and catch words but he was basically a Stalinist. > > "Stalin maintained Lenin's system." > > See Mao. I mean, he basically wrested power from Lenin (Trotsky was the heir > apparent) and turned the USSR into a full-on State-Capitalist economy. He was > an evil dictator. He was all about power. He turned himself into a god, a > cult leader to be worshipped and adored. There was nothing of a communist > about him. > > Look, I said earlier that there's never been a communist state. And I don't > think there ever will be one. I think that one of the downfalls (perhaps the > biggest one) of communism is that it almost necessarily devolves into a > dictatorship, with a single-party, totalitarian government led by a > megalomaniac who tries to turn himself into a god. > > It's happened enough times, hasn't it? > > I'm a lefty but I'm no commie. Nice concept, nice theory but it'll never fly. > The vacuum left during or after the revolution will always leave the opening > for the above to occur. Always. > > But whatever criticisms you have of the evil regimes you mention, they're > evil for reasons other than their putative communism. > > Cheers, > > frank > > > > On November 17, 2015 2:50:01 PM EST, Collin B <[email protected]> wrote: >>>There has never been a communist state. After the Revolution the USSR >>may >>have been moving that way but never got there. However close they may >>(or >>may not have) come, >>>they were completely derailed by Stalin. >>> >>>The USSR and every other so-called communist state were actually >>State-Capitalists. That is they were in fact capitalist however the >>means of >>production were owned by >>>the state rather than individuals or corporations (who are, as we all >>know, >>legal persons). >>> >>>So whatever happened to the USSR and the Warsaw Pact states, it wasn't >>happening to commies. >>> >>>Cheers, >>> >>>frank >> >>In the West we like to over-simplify or idealize communism as some sort >>of >>communalism. >>Nothing could be further from the truth, John Lennon not being excused >>for >>his "imagination." >> >>They called themselves Communists. Lenin was the orthodox Marxist. >>Mao was an orthodox Marxist. Stalin maintained Lenin's system. >>Stalin killed 60M. Mao, at least 30M. Hitler, 10M+ >>Those three killed about 1/20 of the world population of the mid 20th >>c. >>Communism is about power. It was never about a touchy-feely community. >> >>Reading Marx' "Capital" he did not entirely oppose the existence of >>capital >>but the system under which it was managed. >> >> >>We just don't learn from history. Malthus was foundational to Marx. >>Though his predictions have failed on numerous occasions they are still >>being proposed as workable (eg, Sanger & the modern green movement). >>Lenin just couldn't make things work. (To his credit, though, he did >>clamp >>down on organized crime.) >>Look at PROC & Cuba? They survive because the feed off capitalism, just >>as >>do other forms of socialism. >>N. Korea, on the other hand, presents the world something much closer >>to >>Stalin's USSR. > > -- > > "Sharpness is a bourgeois concept." -- Henri Cartier-Bresson > > Sent from my Android device with K-9 Mail. Please excuse my brevity. > > -- > PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List > [email protected] > http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net > to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly above and follow > the directions. -- Life is too short to put up with bad bokeh. -- PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List [email protected] http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly above and follow the directions.
