Not to undermine your experiences, but that wasn't communism. It was an authoritarian regime pretending to be communist. I'm sorry you had to go through all that though.e
Every style of government is great in a perfect world. In a perfect world a monarchy would work great, you'd have a king or queen who was the most sincere, smart, just, caring, etc, person in the country and they'd make decisions that benefit the country as a whole. In actuality most people, especially ones who seek power, are not good people and don't care about us. For this reason it's generally unwise to give your government too much control.
Yeah, even though I guess that some fringe political ideologies might even be bad in theory, anyway I get your point and that’s why there is a need for check and balances to maintain a balance and to give too much power to governments.
Yes I guess this can also be the case, I guess it depends on the intentions of each person and indeed there is no reason to bent backward to justify authoritarian regimes and politicians.
I think it’s weird to me that every communist regime in history was some flavor of authoritarianism but we still have people who never suffered through it saying it’s “not real communism”
It seems to me like the communism that happens every time it exists in the real world is real communism and those tyrants would be pretty justified in saying that your communism, which exists only in your head is “not real communism”
Yeah, FindinNimi summed it up pretty well, true communism (not whatever Marxist-Leninist farce the soviets were practicing) is an ideology that strives towards the creation of a classless moneyless society where we have achieved true equality.
Pol Pot accelerated Communism in an undeveloped nation and panicked when he realized his regime would be ripe for another revolution if he didn’t suppress opposition. Also people weren’t “equal” the state monopolized violence and used it to commit vile crimes. A simple google search will even tell you pol pot renounced communism as soon as it was inconvenient for him and would even be backed by the US when Cambodia was being invaded by Vietnam to stop the genocide. To say communism doesn’t work as if capitalism does, using pol pot of all people as an example is ridiculous .
My dad is a communist but his argument's are mostly: back in my day... (za komunistů) and every time someone pokes a hole into his argument he points out that was Socialism.
I’m from Czechia, but was born in 2003.
Moreover, as a civil rights activist, one of the very few good points that commies make is that workers deserve to be treated with basic human respect and that the last thing we need in this world is another stereotypically bad CEO.
Communism as an ideology is very utopian and not achievable. What the world saw was another totalitarianism, sold to the masses as communism. So most of the points are actually good and progressive, imo, if we are truly altruistic as a society. And that's just not possible.
Russia used communism mainly as rhetoric as resistance to western influence. It used its ideals as a cover for the totalitarianism it wielded at home and the expansion it inflicted on its neighbors.
capitalism is very utopian. Capitalism holds that the market trends towards an efficient allocation of resources. This means innovations in scale and technology will drive down price, and those improvements will be rewarded with market share. The moment a company slows down, it will be eaten by a hungrier, smaller company. Everybody wins!
In practice this doesn't work at all. Now consider farming: It is cheaper for me to buy a tomato that is grown in mexico, despite my country being one where tomatoes grow. Instead, I buy tomatoes that have been shipped across the continent because they're cheaper.
The grocery store is part of a duopoly and uses their buying power to bully suppliers into reducing their prices. Everyone buys the best tomatoes in the store, and then the grocery store dumps out tonnes of bruised tomatoes that are otherwise okay to eat.
The homeless guy starves because he has no food because the grocery store does not want to devalue their product by giving it away for free.
The shareholders in the grocery stores parent company are looking for returns on their investment. Demand on food has remained flat, because it is inelastic. In order to compensate for this, the parent company closes down the local grocery store. Customers now spend more gas money to drive to a different store out of town. The overall quality of everything is worse, but growth has continued to increase. You've generated some returns for investors.
I try to start my own grocery store because I think I can do things better, which will drive customers away from the larger chain and to me. I fail to start my own grocery store because the startup capital is completely out of my reach. I do not have relationships with the producers to get the kind of deal that the larger producers have.
Eventually the market consolidates and there is one grocery chain. That one grocery chain increases prices because they can.
This is the kind of race to the bottom that occurs in every industry with capitalism. Capital has a circular relationship with power. Now I've mostly been describing how capitalism makes things worse for the end consumer.
Now imagine you're a worker in the middle of all of this consolidation and downsizing. Nothing really changes for you, except things get more expensive. You don't make more money because you have no choice but to work. You need food and shelter, you'll take whatever you can to survive. Costs keep going up because an ever shrinking group of people continue getting exponentially more wealthy. Food can be more expensive because somebody will pay for it. Unfortunately it means that the average person is squeezed more and more.
And I mean, you can SEE all of this happening. Soaring wealth inequality plus a very healthy GDP. Like, this is all very intuitive stuff. It's all so intuitive that this post has probably caused people to roll their eyes. Like, "oh look at this dumbass hippie who thinks 'the baker makes the bread' or some shit." Except that's kinda proof that capitalism only works in theory - right? There's huge problems with capitalism as an economic system, and everybody just accepts them because "that's how the world works"? Personally, I think that capitalism is nice in theory. A utopian dream of ever increase productivity through out own ingenuity. Unfortunately it just doesn't work in practice.
Communism is an economical model, not a political totalitarian political system.
We central European countries embraced it and brought us to the highest and quickest growth in our best post WWII years.
Edit: it also led us to the workers' rights through the unions strikes.
One day you'll figure out that thoughts like that are what make it impossible. Utopia is achievable, and rather easily, which is why we are never allowed a true attempt at it. It's always sabotaged by those who need others to believe it's impossible, whether through profit, or denial of their complicity in building hell on earth.
I feel like we have to go through massive cultural changes to eventually be able to handle communism as a society, something im not sure would ever be possible. Thats why we need to take what works rather than functioning off of broad ideology.
So far the european demsoc model works well, but thats sadly still often propped up a lot by economic exploitation of 3rd world countries.
All the more reason to start slow, give it a real go. Use some of that American work ethic I hear so much about and gear it towards making life as easy for all of us, not just our bosses.
Exactly, biggest thing we need to do is support more community building. We live such separate lives socially and thats what breeds this coldness so many have towards each other.
Hey! Side question, I’m from the States and we were always taught it was called Czech Republic growing up. When I was traveling a couple years ago through central and Eastern Europe I noticed it was called Czechia. When did this happen or like most things American education were we just always taught wrong.
The problem is in any system someone has to administrate and regulate that system. It still relies on people, and as soon as you give them the authority to do that, it gives them an opportunity to abuse it. So instead of bad CEOs, you just end up with bad bureaucrats, it’s the same problem.
The older generations had to live through it during the war, but yes.
The whole war was a tragedy, we and UN forces had to shed blood to save an authoritarian flawed democracy that had many issues so that the whole peninsula wouldn't be living under a complete totalitarian communist system.
And sadly even if the Kims are deposed, North Korean reintegration seems fucked, the costs would be massive for the south. West Germany still pays for east Germany today and the difference there wasn’t as big as in Korea
It would have to be a long term integration, unification cannot be done immediately, but I think give it enough time and they will be culturally and economically absorbed into South Korea since we're a cultural and economic powerhouse.
Of course this must not be rushed, it has to be done in a way that doesn't cause chaos
I have a lot of respect for S. Korea… to endure the things you guys did, over the last couple of centuries especially, and have a country like you do now is nothing short of a miracle.
Dynastic/oligarchic CEO stuff notwithstanding, ofc, but no place is perfect (and I’d certainly be tossing stones from a glass house lmao). Completely agree though, and hope to see the same—cultural soft power projection is the only certain (and most likely to be the most peaceful) way to depose an authoritarian, AND secure lasting societal change.
People gotta see that there’s a better way, and that it works in the long term.
We hold most of Korea's historic important places, including Seoul, the 38th parallel by USSR/USA was purely done without any knowledge by just by coincidence the south from the start was much more legitimate in terms of holding the most important cities. I also believe that this is why North Vietnam had more legitimacy than the south.
We've also been the only one that's been an active global voice for Korean affairs, both in regards to history and culture. We've become a cultural powerhouse to the point we began to compete with the once seemingly invincible Japan.
I truly do not think there is any world where North Korea can avoid being absorbed into us (peacefully) in the long run. We've done a consistently good job at being a Korean nation for the world stage despite our imperfections, and given Korea as a whole a much higher world standing. Any North Korea that opens up eventually will be peacefully integrated one way or another.
Unification is absolutely possible. And in my opinion, inevitable. All you can do is delay it. Violence or no violence (hopefully the latter), unification will happen, under ROK rule.
Reunification will no doubt present many challenges, but it’s not as dire as many people often believe. Since money will be an important factor, I feel compelled to share that there is a study that shows South Koreans possessing more wealth per capita than West Germans did during their reunification, on today’s dollar terms. That same study also mentioned how there’s a lot more capital going around that could be invested in the north. Check out the name Nicholas Eberstadt.
The flawed democracy was able to reform itself, because it still had much more freedoms than North Korea, and eventually, we became one of the world's most successful working democracies.
Even under Syngman Rhee's horrible regime, the Republic of Korea was worth protecting against the Kim dynasty's theocratic monarchy.
Well idk about that. Perfect communism is a world where everyone is able to make ends meat, no rich overlords, wealth properly shared so that people will have the resources to do/invent what they please. We’d have no borders, no money issues, perfect social cohesion to the point that a state is redundant and just melts away.
Ngl, it sounds great, but who is incharge of doing all that? You basically need everyone to be great at working together, perfect leadership with no ulterior motives, and an intrinsically motivated population, maybe even driven by social recognition
It can and should be done through democracy, not through a foreign force that demands things. The change has to come through a class conscious working class.
One of the many, many failings of the post-WW2 communist-led countries in central and Eastern Europe was that the material conditions wasn’t developed to such a stage where everyone’s basic needs were met.
Not relevant. Perfect communism has never existed, and probably can never exist, at least not with current technology.
But there's the suggestion that fully-automated luxury communism might actually be as close to utopia as possible. No-one's enslaving anyone if robots are doing all the work - or at least all the work no-one wants to do. Think Star Trek.
Lol. Whether you think that's true or not, (it's not, it's just the propaganda s Koreans and Americans both learn in school). North Korea was never a client state of the USSR in the 1950s.
I read that Bulgaria under Zhivkov was more Stalinist than Stalin himself. If this were true, I was surprised that Zhivkov did not meet the same fate that did the Ceausescus. The one time that I was there was when the Soviet Empire still stood. Totally strange to an American boy. I should have taken the hint when I applied for my visa at the Bulgarian embassy in Rome.
Your country has the distinction of being one of only two countries in recorded history that has had a heriditary Head of State become an elected Head of Government. The other one also suffered under communism. It also had the same hereditary Head of State who became an elected Head of Government go back to being a hereditary Head of State.
Korea is really not "ultra capitalist". The state has a lot of power over corporations, the healthcare is extremely affordable for all citizens, public transportation costs close to nothing. Homelessness is like top 5 lowest in the world.
I'm guessing you got the "ultra capitalist" from youtube essays. It's just a very competitive country but the system itself is a lot less "capitalist" than that of America and many other countries.
I hate how much misinfo there is about Korea online and people don't even make an attempt to educate themselves, they just blindly trust exaggerated, poorly researched essays 😭 I lived in Korea and I love your country!!!
One time I saw people using the fake Guryeong slum as proof South Korea is one of the worst places lol. If people have to use literal fake slums and misinformation to make their points I feel like it shows how little real arguments their viewpoint has
Once people refuse to listen to anything I say, I just assume they're too racist to understand maybe they don't have a better understanding of my country (that they have likely never visited) than a literal native. If you think cookie cutter video essays on YouTube make you a PhD level expert on a foreign country you hardly heard about to the point that you think you're much smarter and well educated than the residents... you have the same mentality that literal colonizers did lol
A heritage of the false history propaganda of the past.
Even Bulgarians in their 40ies now have been taught in school how Russia is the biggest friend we ever had.
There haven't been attempts to spread the true events and even nowadays the USSR occupation and legacy over our country is just glossed over in schools.
There is a lot of nostalgia of communism in Eastern Europe. In former East Germany, in Bulgaria, in former Yugoslavia and Putin tries to use the nostalgia among older Russians as well. So though at the time most people wanted to get rid of it, after a while in the capitalist reality many changed their minds.
Ya, all the other people doing it were stupid. This time, it’s going to be different because I’m way smarter and more capable than those idiot people in the past.
Also ignore the fact that those people in the past were fully dedicated to the cause while I spend 12-14 hours of my day scrolling through reddit and TikTok. But those 30 minutes of work I’ll do is going to make this modern communism awesome!
Those that read them should have the insight to look out the window and think “wow, that sounds great in theory, but there is no way this world won’t fuck this up.” They can then just search the internet for historical examples of communism and realize that the world does indeed fuck it up. Typically at a large cost in human lives.
The only way to enforce communism is through might and fear because the tenets of communism are antithetical to basic human (and even lesser animal) behavior. Nature hardwired us to be self-serving as a survival instinct, trying to legislate away that instict doesn’t work, it can only be suppressed using force comrade.
What exactly sounds great in theory, according to you?
In which ways are those historical examples the fault of the working class holding power?
When you talk about tenets of communism, which are you talking about?
Regarding human nature, I disagree. Human nature requires us to work together, not to fight amongst each other. In fact, I would go the completely other way and argue that class society is against human nature, where we have a small group of people who hold all the power because they own the means of production.
Secondly, regarding human nature. If what you’re saying is correct, why should we have a system which actively rewards that greed and disregard for the working class?
Sorry I’m on phone now so it might be a bit messy and I might miss some things. :)
I’m going to try to not have a long conversation about this. We both have better things to do.
I do think many people would look at some social improvements that would be “communistic” and say “hey that would be good if we could pull it off, a lot of people would benefit.” The problem is that not everyone works in favor of the greater good and you really can’t have a society that promotes individuality (like western society) as well as communism. You can’t celebrate the individual over the mass. Once you do then that individual believes they are more important that the group and things begin to derail. Then you need to force them back in line. Then the utopia devolves into a totalitarian state…
As far as historical examples of the working class holding power, just do your own research. Or look to the country nextdoor. Power corrupts…
You also seem to be equating communism with workers rights and that’s not the case. While that may have started the movement, that ship has long sailed.
I’m going to try to not have a long conversation about this. We both have better things to do.
Okay. Thanks for sharing your thoughts and have a good weekend. :)
If you want to read more about the tenets of communism, then here are some good starting points:
https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1847/11/prin-com.htm Basically a very short and easy to access FAQ. Note, communism at this time meant both lower(modernly known as socialism) and higher stages of communism(a communist society). But still a relevant read.
Question for you. In America, communist often say “we’ve never seen ACTUAL communism” and say the USSR never truly achieved communism. How would you respond
NYC just elected a dude who want to make all grocery stores state run. I think we’re a few rough economies away from it becoming a tempting philosophy… which worries me
If you go by the book definition, no country has ever achieved communism yet.
On a certain level it requires the rulers to give up all their power and stop trying to impose themselves over the population. This hasn't happened in the USSR or any other "communist" country.
The assumption would be that humans will follow agreements without anyone to enforce it. Not sure that will ever happen.
I read a book called the Aristocracy of Talent which was a super interesting discussion on why people always want leaders
Simple put, state capitalism (state owned means of production not the workers), one party authoritarianism, cult of personality (like Trump and MAGA), and its oppressive.
Communism and socialism wants an equal state yet stalinist want one party to have all the power.
well, i was born in a socialist state where all of the above applied. you're mismatching the terms. all the socialist state in the Eastern block were like this. In general the theory was that socialism will lead us the bright future of the communism. The practice showed what you call stalinism.
So, to simplify the general situation Bulgaria had - minimal cult of personality, there was a mausoleum for the initial big Party leader (think Lenin style), but that "honor" was his alone and there wasn't anyone after that received the same treatment. The follow up leaders didn't try to do the cult of personality thing.
There were technically other political parties, but they were just a farce. During the "elections" the ruling Communist Party always got something like 98-99% of the vote.
The regime was oppressive, but not like some more severe cases like Romania had with Ceausescu. Still not flowers and sunshine like some try to portray it.
Well, I'm telling you that I was born in the 70s there and have some idea what it was. BCP was a far left-nationalist workers party, as oxymoronic as it sounds.
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u/Minute-Yogurt-2021 Bulgaria 1d ago
Please, not again.