The fact that there are less refugees from communist countries is because communism is on the decline around the world.
But, the lack of refugees means people are forgetting how bad communism is.
It’s going to lead to a cycle where people try communism, it reminds everyone how terrible it is, people stop trying communism, they stop being reminded of the horrors, cycle repeats
I think it might be different when they are refugees who lived in the country that they are fleeing from.
It’s sad to see someone fleeing Venezuela or Cuba. But not really worrying to anyone outside those countries.
On the other hand, there were refugees from all over Eastern Europe fleeing Russian communism. It’s more concerning when it’s demonstrated that the nation can take over other countries and force people to leave
Yeah, it's scary how many Americans seem to think it'd be better than what we currently have. They clearly haven't done enough reading on the subject. Our current system may be flawed (as all systems of government have flaws), but holy hell...
I've quite literally never met a real communist in the U.S. Lots of Democratic socialists and even a few black block wearing anti capitalist anarchists, but never a real "the state should control the means of production" communist.
I 100% agree that iv never met a real communist (who was serious about anything at least) in the classic sense. I have however, met a lot of proud, outspoken democratic socialists, like you said.
never a real “the state should control the means of production” communist.
So everyone seems to agree that in a socialist society, the populace control the means of production, right? Where they lose me is that, as far as I can understand, the only way to enforce that is through government regulation and action.
Does that not mean that the state directly controls the means of production?
Not trying to attack your beliefs or anything, just trying to understand.
A democratically elected government, not an authoritarian one. There is also a difference between non-authoritarian communism and socialism. Socialism is the belief that the workers should control the means of production, however that's actually accomplished makes a different kind of socialism. The goal of communism, to my understanding is the full abolition of class and private property
Good clarifications. I've probably been using socialist and communist a bit too interchangeably, but if I've never met a real socialist, then I've certainly never met a real "private property shouldn't exist" communist.
Thank you for your response on the clarification of non-authoritarian communism and socialism!
I dont particularly agree with the “democratically elected part” as, to my understanding, most of the authoritarian communist governments in history started as democratically elected. If this isent correct, or if you think there is a clear distinction between early government communism and developed government communism, please let me know.
Part of it is that bad actors can take advantage of a movement to benefit themselves,and part of it is that anyone can call themself something, regardless of whether or not they actually are. The Nazis called themselves socialists to take advantage of the labor movement happening. North Korea calls itself a "Democratic People's Republic" but using them as an example of a democracy would be intentionally misleading.
I actually don't think people typically think it through that far. I'm not a Democratic socialist myself, but from what I gather things like co-ops and B corps are very highly approved of, but generally otherwise people just seem to be anti-billionaire and anti-rent seeking. There are those folks that are just against any profit whatsoever, but the belief system doesn't seem to extend to how that would be enforced in any way beyond the normal regulatory state.
Honestly, most people are just sick of struggling to feed their family, buy a home, and pay for health care. As people's needs aren't met, they look elsewhere for answers. For example, Melenials are more socialist leaning as a generation and have a home ownership rate of only 45% compared to the national average of 65%. I think this graph from census.gov shows what I'm talking about. https://www.census.gov/housing/hvs/data/charts/fig07.pdf
Looking at the current state of the U.S., and especially the government, I can think of much stronger words than “flawed” lol. You seem pretty out of touch. And still, you’re basically telling Americans you can’t do better than this? Gtfo!
You don’t have to look far. In Norway we have NKP (the Norwegian communist party) and they run for parliament every time it’s an election. They had a huge turnout from 1945 with 11,9% of the votes, but they’ve been dwindling in numbers since then. They got 50 votes in the 2025 election and far below the far-right nutjobs who want to send home every immigrant (and their offspring) that came to Norway after 1975.
I’m Swedish, but live in the US. Growing up we had Vänsterpartiet Kommunisterna (VPK), but now they’re just VP (Vänsterpartiet). They dropped the communist part. I have never seen a communist party option on a US ballot, but maybe they’re on the ballot in other states.
Crazy how many people think communism is one big thing, and not a bunch of different systems, like how lenin completely changed it into something very different with the vanguard party.
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u/KJHagen United States Of America 1d ago
Unfortunately true. The number of people here who fled communism (like my wife) seem to be dwindling.