someone who lives in post-communist or communist country: communist authorities committed genocide/purges/deportations/mass executions in my country against those who they considered to be “enemies of the state”
tumblr: are you sure it happened?
Tag: communist
Communism is really fucking stupid.
Anarcho communism is cool and stuff but you do realize that human nature wouldn’t allow for it to work, right? Humans are selfish. They will try to take power.
citation needed
Emma Goldman just rolled her eyes in her grave.
And wild bears break into houses because they’re looking for a tricycle to ride.
What does that have to do with anything?
Bears in captivity ride tricycles so it’s obviously “ursine nature” to behave that way.
I’m not really sure how animal abuse in captivity is relevant to the selfish nature of humans.
http://www.express.co.uk/news/uk/539611/Scientific-Study-finds-humans-selfish
And anarchism would turn into a world of what is now considered crime. Look at what people do with laws, and imagine what they would do without them.
Look at the book Animal Farm, for example. Even The Lorax works as an argument. Animal Farm was originally written as satire for Stalinist Russia. However, it has grounds in society today. Why does the US have “checks and balances” to keep one branch of government from becoming too powerful? BECAUSE HUMANS WILL TRY TO TAKE POWER IF GIVEN THE OPPORTUNITY, AND IT CORRUPTS. In Animal Farm, the pigs took power because they were the smartest. They originally were (at least supposedly) there to help the other animals. However, as time went on, since the other animals weren’t smart enough to notice or fight back, the pigs started to take advantage of them. Sure, they were animals in the book, but they were personified animals. They were showing what humans would do in that situation.Now, I know that’s Stalinist communism, not Marxism. I think communism is a beautiful idea, but I don’t think that it is possible to totally implement it in a way that would work. I don’t think humans can’t be taught. Our current way of life is too far ingrained into us, and by the time we got it learned, I find it hard to believe that the group teaching us wouldn’t have taken power.
I’m not saying I don’t like communism, I just don’t think it can be implemented properly given how ingrained in our current lifestyle we are without it backfiring somehow.
(Also if capitalism has been around longer than communism I think that it would be our nature not just conditioning)
These people.
Every time.
Without fail.
That nearly everyone is forced to read fairy tales about the dangers of inferiors unseating the status quo at some point sometime in school has absolutely nothing to do with the benefits the propertied class receive from mass political powerlessness. No way. Just ridiculous.
Animal Farm is about how bad Stalinist Russia is and the lesson is “ultimate power corrupts ultimately”. I don’t get what you’re saying.
I don’t get what’s confusing about how the pigs tried to implement communism but instead created an oligarchy.
Also, yet again, could somebody explain to me or give me sources as to how actual communism of any form would be implemented successfully? Because yes, it is better than capitalism.Except it’s not, it’s an allegorical work of fiction. If it actually were about how bad Soviet Russia was supposed to be, it would concern itself with facts as many anti-communist historians have tried and failed in the face of evidence against their claims. If Orwell really wanted to write a book alleging the “badness” of the Soviet Union in the Stalin era, he would have done his research on the subject, but like any good liberal, he realized this was impossible, as reality often displays a frightening equivocation of such a Manichaen dichotomy. So like any liberal idealist, he portrayed this “badness” as spiritual or imaginary through fiction.
Any implied parallel between Animal Farm and the Soviet Union(or reality in general) exists in your imagination. I invite you to research the reality of the Soviet Union instead of allowing yourself to be intimidated by works of fiction.
Animal Farm is not an especially technically proficient piece of writing, nor is it a sophisticated satire. It was just expedient to the interests of imperialist power to diffuse this story as widely as possible and draw it’s connection to the Soviet Union. The CIA even funded the animated adaptation. The story itself is so vague that it could just as easily be applied to the French Revolution or the Hoxhaist conception of Khrushchev.
There is nothing wrong with writing fairy stories, but it’s patently false to make reference to them to make a political point about a historical incidence. Tthere were innumerable satires about the capitalist countries written in the Soviet Union in the Stalin era. Why are these irrelevant to your understanding while Animal Farm is? Their claim to correspond to reality is as strong as Animal Farm.
It’s not confusing at all how Orwell dehumanizes the working class. He was a worthless person like that. He couldn’t bring any facts out or study the facts of Soviet Russia’s political system, so like any good coward, he made up fiction and lies that continue to be trite cautions which are repeated by reactionary demagogues every time the working class demands the slightest concession.
If you are dealing with historical truth, you owe works of fiction nothing.
Most of what you know about the Soviet Union comes from anti-communist historiography produced by Imperialist powers during the Cold War. I’m not going to accuse you of being brainwashed, I will simply point out that you, like myself have been lied to about the Soviet Union by those who’s vested interest is to oppose (and slander) any attempt by the working people to repress their enemies. politically. For a long time I believed these lies uncritically until I decided to investigate these claims individually
With regard to your last point, Communism is not theoretical, it is the result of the scientific application of Marxism-Leninism-Maoism defined as the end of the bourgeoisie as a class and and their corresponding legal form (private property).
Communism is implemented successfully by a form of organization which is able to repress the bourgeoisie by carrying class struggles by the masses to a new level. This interferes with their legal ability for capital to function reliably for them.
In order to understand this science correctly you do not need the read anything, it has been carried out successfully by illiterate peasants. If reading is conducive to your understanding I reccomend the following introduction:
https://ajadhind.wordpress.com/marxism-leninism-maoism-basic-course/
I can’t refute or agree with what you’re saying since I have no understanding of Animal Farm outside of my English class and what you just said. But my understanding is that Orwell wrote it that way because he would’ve been killed otherwise and it’s basically a direct parallel to the Soviet Union since he wasn’t a real clever shit.
But if at all possible, could you give me sources? I’m not really inclined to believe either way since I don’t have much reason to without more to back it up. I love finding ways that the popular mentality is brainwashed and propaganda, so even if what you’re saying is wrong I’ll probably believe you. If you give me sources. I’m not going to trust some random person off the internet without more to back them up. Basic CARS Checklist, really.
And I mean we can’t really say with certainty what Orwell was trying to do unless he wrote it down or is still alive to tell us. (As opposed to analysis of Of Mice And Men, which from my understanding comes from how he planned it. I haven’t seen it myself, though.)
And both sides in the Cold War used a lot of propaganda, just saying. Propaganda, as I’m sure you’re aware, is really powerful during wars.Reading and sources is how I know it didn’t come out of your ass, and is how I learn things better, since I’m not an illiterate peasant.
I understand how Marxism is better than what I’ve been told happened in Russia. I like communism but it hasn’t successfully been done yet to my understanding.
I will read that, though.
.Orwell intended it as directly parallel to the Soviet Union, as such it is a popularization of the distorted and false Trotskyist belief that capitalist restoration occurred in the Stalin era. I am aware of Orwell’s intent. It was simply his intent to popularize a lie about the Soviet Union. It is parallel to Orwell’s conception of the Soviet Union and not the Soviet Union itself.
If he imagined he would be killed for using the names of the figures he intended to portray, that’s his business. I think that’s self-flattery because of the volume of anti-communist literature. With fiction, conveniently, it is possible to do away with all obligation to fact.
So, are you sincerely asking me for a source on wither or not Animal Farm is a work of fiction? If you can’t even agree to that, then you maintain the historical incidence of talking pigs.
Animal Farm expresses that the lies about the Soviet Union could continue nowhere else but in outright fiction.
That is all I am saying. It doesn’t matter wither or not you agree because it’s trueregardless of what Orwell’s intent was. .
Animal Farm is a work of Fiction with as much bearing on the fact of the Soviet Union as anything written by Chuck Tingle.
But if you want sources about my factual claim that it was funded by the CIA, you could have just googled it instead of me waste my time finding it for you.. It’s fewer keystrokes than pointlessly meandering and repeating yourself to flesh out a non-response, and since you didn’t even ask me which factual claim you wanted a citation for, it’s calculatedly vague and confusing.
Since you claim to like reading and sources and finding out perceived inconsistencies in the popular understanding, I think a good place to start is the widespread notion that Stalin and Mao (among others) were tyrannical despots and the associated conspiracy theories that they manufactured the deaths of millions. Then you’re in for a treat.
What exactly am I supposed to “mind” when you say ‘propaganda”. Propaganda is a word for information or communications with negative connotations. There is nothing wrong with information in and of itself. It is wither that information is true or false is what matters. Propaganda can express true statements and false ones like any form of information, aside from that it’s an intimidating word. All (not both) sides in the Cold War used Propaganda. In the case of the Soviet Union and China, it was mostly right, as it was centered on attacking the US for their repeated wars and support for genocidaires. The Anti-Communist Propaganda produced by the US and their allies focused on Communism allegedly infringing upon “liberty”, which had no meaning for outside contradictory and propertarian grounds.
Communism isn’t something which is ‘done’ successfully. It’s the result of successful class struggle. It cannot be declared or implemented by anyone except the masses participating in active repression of the bourgeoisie and effective a qualificative change in the basis for the legal forms of society.When we say we are communists, we do not express our intention to term anything or practice as communism but that we will not stop fighting until the day when last bourgeoisie is no longer protected.
I don’t know where you got the idea that I was confused as to whether or not Animal Farm was fiction. I’m not stupid or below five years old. Animals don’t talk.
I’ve tried googling stuff related to this and I never really get what I’m looking for.
Sources on whether or not what you’re saying about the Soviet Union is true. And am I wrong in that Russia didn’t do communism correctly and it ended up not working? Somebody I was having a similar conversation with said that, and I can’t remember their URL currently but if you really want it… They said that we could learn from the mistakes of Spain and Russia.
I’ll look at it but didn’t Stalin kill more than Hitler or is that just my English teacher making up shit?
Whatever. All. It’s really besides my point. I get what you’re saying.
Okay, I get it. Although since it’s a process I consider it implementing an ideology.
You said yourself Animal Farm was about the Soviet Union during the Stalin period. If it is a work of fiction it could not be because both the Soviet Union and Stalin were historical personages. It was written as a satire of such but in no way conveyed the reality of that era.
I say a lot of things about the Soviet Union, I already told you to be specific about that. There’s no point if you can’t be specific. My principle claim was that it was not composed of talking animals and therefore Orwell’s depiction of it is false. Animals don’t talk as you said yourself.
The Soviet Union did not “do communism”, they repressed the bourgeoisie as a class during socialist construction. It was a partial success because the bourgeoisie were repressed successfully but it was defeated by the capitalist under Khrushchev when he authorized the sale of machine tractor stations in 1956 and pursued peaceful coexistence with Imperialist powers. I repeated myself point, communism is not a process but a result.
Stalin didn’t kill anywhere near as many as Hitler. Your English teacher isn’t making it up, they’re just repeating something which Joseph Goebbels probably made up.
Ideologies aren’t something implemented, they result from the economic practice which is prior to activity. Instead it was the effective form of carrying out class struggle.
It’s satire but I don’t really want to debate the point of a book I read in a 9th grade English class.
I think the reason it’s animals is so Orwell didn’t get called out but again I only know what my English teacher told me, which could be wrong. I don’t get how it can’t be satire and be talking animals because is satire not social commentary? (I’m in 9th grade so cut me some slack if I’m being ignorant, I’m trying not to be.)
It seems to me you’re saying the Soviet Union Did No Wrong. If that’s not what you’re saying, please correct me, and give me a source for that.
Okay, communism is a result. Getting to it is a process. Ideologies can become things that can be implemented through a process.
Okay. I’m not real keen on trusting my English teacher anyway.
(Although technically Hitler didn’t personally kill every person but he is still responsible for their deaths). Has there ever been a bigger genocide than Hitler, though?
Anarcho communism is cool and stuff but you do realize that human nature wouldn’t allow for it to work, right? Humans are selfish. They will try to take power.
citation needed
Emma Goldman just rolled her eyes in her grave.
And wild bears break into houses because they’re looking for a tricycle to ride.
What does that have to do with anything?
Bears in captivity ride tricycles so it’s obviously “ursine nature” to behave that way.
I’m not really sure how animal abuse in captivity is relevant to the selfish nature of humans.
http://www.express.co.uk/news/uk/539611/Scientific-Study-finds-humans-selfish
And anarchism would turn into a world of what is now considered crime. Look at what people do with laws, and imagine what they would do without them.
Look at the book Animal Farm, for example. Even The Lorax works as an argument. Animal Farm was originally written as satire for Stalinist Russia. However, it has grounds in society today. Why does the US have “checks and balances” to keep one branch of government from becoming too powerful? BECAUSE HUMANS WILL TRY TO TAKE POWER IF GIVEN THE OPPORTUNITY, AND IT CORRUPTS. In Animal Farm, the pigs took power because they were the smartest. They originally were (at least supposedly) there to help the other animals. However, as time went on, since the other animals weren’t smart enough to notice or fight back, the pigs started to take advantage of them. Sure, they were animals in the book, but they were personified animals. They were showing what humans would do in that situation.Now, I know that’s Stalinist communism, not Marxism. I think communism is a beautiful idea, but I don’t think that it is possible to totally implement it in a way that would work. I don’t think humans can’t be taught. Our current way of life is too far ingrained into us, and by the time we got it learned, I find it hard to believe that the group teaching us wouldn’t have taken power.
I’m not saying I don’t like communism, I just don’t think it can be implemented properly given how ingrained in our current lifestyle we are without it backfiring somehow.
(Also if capitalism has been around longer than communism I think that it would be our nature not just conditioning)
The point I am making is that humans, like all animals, adapt to the circumstances and conditions of their environment. The economic/social environment that we currently live in conditions us to act selfishly, much as so many captive bears have been trained to behave in a way they wouldn’t outside of that similarly coercive environment. The only provable characteristic of human nature is to adapt to our surroundings.
As for the study you cite, it proves that the subjects’ previous training from society still held sway over their choices in the game. Would the outcome have been the same if they had been raised in a gift economy, such as was the norm for many, many human cultures for the majority of history? I highly doubt it.
Edited to add that I somehow completely missed the final, utterly ignorant assertion that capitalism is older than communism.
Right, I get that. I understand that it is ingrained into humans through conditioning. I’m just not sure how you’d change that since most people are used to capitalism.
Right, their PREVIOUS TRAINING FROM SOCIETY. How would you override that for the superior (admittedly) idea of anarchist communism?
I said if, I don’t know. Is it not?
And please, I want sources.
(I have to take something to my son at his job sort of soon so this won’t be as thorough a reply as I’d like. I can be pretty bad at coming back to things if I don’t immediately address them, though.)
I believe it starts with building alternative relationships within our immediate communities. It starts with learning what much of life was like before commonly held land was stolen by the state and turned into the private property of the predecessors of today’s capitalists. It’s not going to be an immediate transition, of course. The invention of capitalism took a while and growing out of it will, too. As an old Sergeant Major once told me during an especially tedious training exercise, “You don’t eat the whole horse in one bite, son. Start with his nose and gnaw your way to his ass.”
Building a culture that values sharing and de-emphasizes consumption as status-seeking will take a lot of different and varied approaches. Diversity of tactics applies in the social aspects of the process of revolution just as much as it does in direct clashes in the streets. Things like neighborhood “tool libraries” where infrequently used tools like lawnmowers, hedgers, shovels, etc. are shared, backyard-sharing garden clubs (and canning clubs) where people with growing space to spare share it with others who don’t have as much, and other forms of cooperative living aren’t the full solution, of course, but they can begin to build a foundation. (I’m not talking about trying to bring back the good old days of slit-trench shitters, cholera, and burying grandpa at the ripe old age of 40, though. I also don’t pretend that backyard gardens are enough to feed humanity. These are simply tools to change the way we relate to one another.)
I dashed off a first-thought, half-assed, but better explanation for this foundation building elsewhere. One of these days I might get around to fleshing it out in more depth but here it is, as it is. I’m past the halfway point in life for men in my family, though, so I know I won’t live to see more than seeds and saplings being planted. I’m content to be one of those “old men who plant trees whose shade they’ll never nap in.”
Okay, I get the little things. But eventually we’ll have to “attack” big corporations, won’t we? How do we go about replacing those with a more equal (fair, whatever) systems? Do we just eventually run them out of business? What?
Also, what about clothes? I can imagine there’d probably be some sort of system to pass it down, would there not? I’m really confused with that part of it. It’s just hard to wrap my head around, but I am trying and I’m using the internet to learn.And I’m not saying it’s likely, but somebody has to initiate this, right? How is it completely impossible for them to end up taking advantage of it? I’m not saying it’s likely, I just want to know how we’d assure this. (Maybe I’m just being ignorant here, though.)
History has given us plenty of examples of how the workers can “attack”, that is, collectivize, corporations so as to bring production and distribution under workers’ control. The formation of the soviets in the Russian Revolution and the process of collectivization in the Spanish Revolution are two great examples. Simply out-competing conventional firms with independently formed co-ops is not a realistic strategy. Private enterprise is at an enormous material advantage within the market, and it has the backing of the state to perfect it if it comes under threat. To achieve socialism, it will be necessary for the workers to take over their own firms–which they are completely justified in doing, as the producers of all of the firms’ wealth.
Some person or group will have to initiate revolutionary action at some point, but ideally the workers would be so organized by that time that the movement would very quickly become a collective effort, led by everyone and no one all at once. Opportunists may (in fact they will, inevitably) attempt to ride the wave and take the helm, as the Bolsheviks did in Russia, but a properly organized anarchist proletariat would be able to spot such threats and nip them in the bud before they gain too much power.
My main problem with communism, in fact the only one, is how it played out in Russia. It started out good but ended poorly, which is why I’m still a bit skeptical.
As long as it’s well organized enough to prevent the corporations from preventing a revolution from succeeding and it has already been determined as to what will happen after a revolution, I do see how it would work. I mean, “overpowering” corporations has happened before.
But also, once it’s there, how do we prevent a capitalist revolution?And I guess it’s far out of my wheelhouse, so to speak, but I’m still finding it hard to wrap my head around it in reality. It’s probably because I’m used to corrupt American capitalism, heh heh.
And if environmentalism is part of this I’m definitely down. Is it? I feel like it would be a bit more valued in the that type of society because the amount of money in something wouldn’t be a concern.Also, again, what about things like clothes? How do we do that part?
I actually think the example of Russia, as well as Spain, will make us more prepared for revolution, since their failures give us a more clear idea of what to look out for, what to do differently, and what to avoid. The Russian Revolution failed primarily because the workers put too much trust in the promises of a political party to implement communism via a state system, and in their justifications for the use of repression as a presumed defense against counterrevolution. The workers and peasants of eastern Spain largely avoided this, but were outmatched by a far greater counterrevolutionary military force. So the success of a revolution really depends on a combination of the proper politics and sufficient manpower, which is ultimately what anarcho-communist propaganda and organization is all about achieving.
The current crisis of environmental destruction is due to the nature of capitalism as a system of unlimited growth for its own sake, with no regard for the larger-scale environmental effects of production and transactions, making it completely unsustainable on a planet with limited resources and a limited capacity for waste. An anarcho-communist system, however, will be more rationally organized around satisfying needs (rather than profit), of which environmental sustainability is an important one.
Regarding clothes, I might have missed something, but do just mean how will they be produced and distributed? If so, then the answer is the same way as any other commodity. They will be produced by workers under conditions of autonomy and collective ownership/control of the workplace, probably according to the prescriptions of some democratic planning committee, and will be distributed as gifts to those who need them first, and those who want them second. There may also be some system for sharing or exchanging clothes that are no longer wanted, I don’t know for sure; these are developments that will have to be made as the revolution happens, for now they’re only suggestions.
If you’re referring specifically to a problem of demand exceeding supply, then my answer would be that the process of radicalizing the proletariat would by necessity involve a deconstruction of bourgeois notions of social status, meaning that people would not hoard excessive amounts of extravagant clothes for their own wardrobes for the sake of showing off.
Ah, yes, makes sense to use failures to learn and more successfully do something than people who have tried before and failed.
I get how a system that isn’t built on getting richer for getting richer’s sake would be more concerned about the environment. I definitely approve of that.
I have a question, though, since capitalist societies have managed to achieve a bit of it, do you think it’s at all possible for a capitalist system to become environmentalist? I don’t really think the nature of it really allows for complete environmentalism, but I don’t think it’s impossible to make a huge difference.
Oh, okay, that makes sense.
Would most of the sharing aspects of this have to be set up before a revolution, though, so that it would be better equipped to handle counters during a revolution?
Anarcho communism is cool and stuff but you do realize that human nature wouldn’t allow for it to work, right? Humans are selfish. They will try to take power.
Do you realize that the argument of “selfish human nature” is crap?
If that were true we would never have survived as a specie. Caveman would have never shared fire, food, knowledge and so on.
Selfish as a species, then. Look at how little concern (capitalism at least) has for other species.
Also, if you read all my other reblogs of this post, you’d see that I had backed off that argument and that I’m now trying to fully understand how it would work.
“Capitalists” are the ones who donnot care about other species. Capitalism is just a theory.
Honestly didnt read all other reblogs. If you are interested in learning how would it work investigate about EZLN, paris comune, anrchism in spain and some other things i can remember.
And Please stay away from “anarcocapitalism” thta shit is not anarchism.
Exactly. Because they are selfish. Selfishness of businesses is why it’s so damn hard to get them to give one fuck about the environment.
How is capitalism a theory if it is a common form of government?
It would be a good bit ridiculous to expect you to read all those walls of text, honestly.
I am definitely trying and will look into those.
Trust me, I just read something about it, I have no interest in it as a concept at all. It’s an oxymoron to be frank and quite honest.
Anarcho communism is cool and stuff but you do realize that human nature wouldn’t allow for it to work, right? Humans are selfish. They will try to take power.
citation needed
Emma Goldman just rolled her eyes in her grave.
And wild bears break into houses because they’re looking for a tricycle to ride.
What does that have to do with anything?
Bears in captivity ride tricycles so it’s obviously “ursine nature” to behave that way.
I’m not really sure how animal abuse in captivity is relevant to the selfish nature of humans.
http://www.express.co.uk/news/uk/539611/Scientific-Study-finds-humans-selfish
And anarchism would turn into a world of what is now considered crime. Look at what people do with laws, and imagine what they would do without them.
Look at the book Animal Farm, for example. Even The Lorax works as an argument. Animal Farm was originally written as satire for Stalinist Russia. However, it has grounds in society today. Why does the US have “checks and balances” to keep one branch of government from becoming too powerful? BECAUSE HUMANS WILL TRY TO TAKE POWER IF GIVEN THE OPPORTUNITY, AND IT CORRUPTS. In Animal Farm, the pigs took power because they were the smartest. They originally were (at least supposedly) there to help the other animals. However, as time went on, since the other animals weren’t smart enough to notice or fight back, the pigs started to take advantage of them. Sure, they were animals in the book, but they were personified animals. They were showing what humans would do in that situation.Now, I know that’s Stalinist communism, not Marxism. I think communism is a beautiful idea, but I don’t think that it is possible to totally implement it in a way that would work. I don’t think humans can’t be taught. Our current way of life is too far ingrained into us, and by the time we got it learned, I find it hard to believe that the group teaching us wouldn’t have taken power.
I’m not saying I don’t like communism, I just don’t think it can be implemented properly given how ingrained in our current lifestyle we are without it backfiring somehow.
(Also if capitalism has been around longer than communism I think that it would be our nature not just conditioning)
These people.
Every time.
Without fail.
That nearly everyone is forced to read fairy tales about the dangers of inferiors unseating the status quo at some point sometime in school has absolutely nothing to do with the benefits the propertied class receive from mass political powerlessness. No way. Just ridiculous.
Animal Farm is about how bad Stalinist Russia is and the lesson is “ultimate power corrupts ultimately”. I don’t get what you’re saying.
I don’t get what’s confusing about how the pigs tried to implement communism but instead created an oligarchy.
Also, yet again, could somebody explain to me or give me sources as to how actual communism of any form would be implemented successfully? Because yes, it is better than capitalism.Except it’s not, it’s an allegorical work of fiction. If it actually were about how bad Soviet Russia was supposed to be, it would concern itself with facts as many anti-communist historians have tried and failed in the face of evidence against their claims. If Orwell really wanted to write a book alleging the “badness” of the Soviet Union in the Stalin era, he would have done his research on the subject, but like any good liberal, he realized this was impossible, as reality often displays a frightening equivocation of such a Manichaen dichotomy. So like any liberal idealist, he portrayed this “badness” as spiritual or imaginary through fiction.
Any implied parallel between Animal Farm and the Soviet Union(or reality in general) exists in your imagination. I invite you to research the reality of the Soviet Union instead of allowing yourself to be intimidated by works of fiction.
Animal Farm is not an especially technically proficient piece of writing, nor is it a sophisticated satire. It was just expedient to the interests of imperialist power to diffuse this story as widely as possible and draw it’s connection to the Soviet Union. The CIA even funded the animated adaptation. The story itself is so vague that it could just as easily be applied to the French Revolution or the Hoxhaist conception of Khrushchev.
There is nothing wrong with writing fairy stories, but it’s patently false to make reference to them to make a political point about a historical incidence. Tthere were innumerable satires about the capitalist countries written in the Soviet Union in the Stalin era. Why are these irrelevant to your understanding while Animal Farm is? Their claim to correspond to reality is as strong as Animal Farm.
It’s not confusing at all how Orwell dehumanizes the working class. He was a worthless person like that. He couldn’t bring any facts out or study the facts of Soviet Russia’s political system, so like any good coward, he made up fiction and lies that continue to be trite cautions which are repeated by reactionary demagogues every time the working class demands the slightest concession.
If you are dealing with historical truth, you owe works of fiction nothing.
Most of what you know about the Soviet Union comes from anti-communist historiography produced by Imperialist powers during the Cold War. I’m not going to accuse you of being brainwashed, I will simply point out that you, like myself have been lied to about the Soviet Union by those who’s vested interest is to oppose (and slander) any attempt by the working people to repress their enemies. politically. For a long time I believed these lies uncritically until I decided to investigate these claims individually
With regard to your last point, Communism is not theoretical, it is the result of the scientific application of Marxism-Leninism-Maoism defined as the end of the bourgeoisie as a class and and their corresponding legal form (private property).
Communism is implemented successfully by a form of organization which is able to repress the bourgeoisie by carrying class struggles by the masses to a new level. This interferes with their legal ability for capital to function reliably for them.
In order to understand this science correctly you do not need the read anything, it has been carried out successfully by illiterate peasants. If reading is conducive to your understanding I reccomend the following introduction:
https://ajadhind.wordpress.com/marxism-leninism-maoism-basic-course/
I can’t refute or agree with what you’re saying since I have no understanding of Animal Farm outside of my English class and what you just said. But my understanding is that Orwell wrote it that way because he would’ve been killed otherwise and it’s basically a direct parallel to the Soviet Union since he wasn’t a real clever shit.
But if at all possible, could you give me sources? I’m not really inclined to believe either way since I don’t have much reason to without more to back it up. I love finding ways that the popular mentality is brainwashed and propaganda, so even if what you’re saying is wrong I’ll probably believe you. If you give me sources. I’m not going to trust some random person off the internet without more to back them up. Basic CARS Checklist, really.
And I mean we can’t really say with certainty what Orwell was trying to do unless he wrote it down or is still alive to tell us. (As opposed to analysis of Of Mice And Men, which from my understanding comes from how he planned it. I haven’t seen it myself, though.)
And both sides in the Cold War used a lot of propaganda, just saying. Propaganda, as I’m sure you’re aware, is really powerful during wars.
Reading and sources is how I know it didn’t come out of your ass, and is how I learn things better, since I’m not an illiterate peasant.
I understand how Marxism is better than what I’ve been told happened in Russia. I like communism but it hasn’t successfully been done yet to my understanding.
I will read that, though.
Anarcho communism is cool and stuff but you do realize that human nature wouldn’t allow for it to work, right? Humans are selfish. They will try to take power.
citation needed
Emma Goldman just rolled her eyes in her grave.
And wild bears break into houses because they’re looking for a tricycle to ride.
What does that have to do with anything?
Bears in captivity ride tricycles so it’s obviously “ursine nature” to behave that way.
I’m not really sure how animal abuse in captivity is relevant to the selfish nature of humans.
http://www.express.co.uk/news/uk/539611/Scientific-Study-finds-humans-selfish
And anarchism would turn into a world of what is now considered crime. Look at what people do with laws, and imagine what they would do without them.
Look at the book Animal Farm, for example. Even The Lorax works as an argument. Animal Farm was originally written as satire for Stalinist Russia. However, it has grounds in society today. Why does the US have “checks and balances” to keep one branch of government from becoming too powerful? BECAUSE HUMANS WILL TRY TO TAKE POWER IF GIVEN THE OPPORTUNITY, AND IT CORRUPTS. In Animal Farm, the pigs took power because they were the smartest. They originally were (at least supposedly) there to help the other animals. However, as time went on, since the other animals weren’t smart enough to notice or fight back, the pigs started to take advantage of them. Sure, they were animals in the book, but they were personified animals. They were showing what humans would do in that situation.Now, I know that’s Stalinist communism, not Marxism. I think communism is a beautiful idea, but I don’t think that it is possible to totally implement it in a way that would work. I don’t think humans can’t be taught. Our current way of life is too far ingrained into us, and by the time we got it learned, I find it hard to believe that the group teaching us wouldn’t have taken power.
I’m not saying I don’t like communism, I just don’t think it can be implemented properly given how ingrained in our current lifestyle we are without it backfiring somehow.
(Also if capitalism has been around longer than communism I think that it would be our nature not just conditioning)
The point I am making is that humans, like all animals, adapt to the circumstances and conditions of their environment. The economic/social environment that we currently live in conditions us to act selfishly, much as so many captive bears have been trained to behave in a way they wouldn’t outside of that similarly coercive environment. The only provable characteristic of human nature is to adapt to our surroundings.
As for the study you cite, it proves that the subjects’ previous training from society still held sway over their choices in the game. Would the outcome have been the same if they had been raised in a gift economy, such as was the norm for many, many human cultures for the majority of history? I highly doubt it.
Edited to add that I somehow completely missed the final, utterly ignorant assertion that capitalism is older than communism.
Right, I get that. I understand that it is ingrained into humans through conditioning. I’m just not sure how you’d change that since most people are used to capitalism.
Right, their PREVIOUS TRAINING FROM SOCIETY. How would you override that for the superior (admittedly) idea of anarchist communism?
I said if, I don’t know. Is it not?
And please, I want sources.
(I have to take something to my son at his job sort of soon so this won’t be as thorough a reply as I’d like. I can be pretty bad at coming back to things if I don’t immediately address them, though.)
I believe it starts with building alternative relationships within our immediate communities. It starts with learning what much of life was like before commonly held land was stolen by the state and turned into the private property of the predecessors of today’s capitalists. It’s not going to be an immediate transition, of course. The invention of capitalism took a while and growing out of it will, too. As an old Sergeant Major once told me during an especially tedious training exercise, “You don’t eat the whole horse in one bite, son. Start with his nose and gnaw your way to his ass.”
Building a culture that values sharing and de-emphasizes consumption as status-seeking will take a lot of different and varied approaches. Diversity of tactics applies in the social aspects of the process of revolution just as much as it does in direct clashes in the streets. Things like neighborhood “tool libraries” where infrequently used tools like lawnmowers, hedgers, shovels, etc. are shared, backyard-sharing garden clubs (and canning clubs) where people with growing space to spare share it with others who don’t have as much, and other forms of cooperative living aren’t the full solution, of course, but they can begin to build a foundation. (I’m not talking about trying to bring back the good old days of slit-trench shitters, cholera, and burying grandpa at the ripe old age of 40, though. I also don’t pretend that backyard gardens are enough to feed humanity. These are simply tools to change the way we relate to one another.)
I dashed off a first-thought, half-assed, but better explanation for this foundation building elsewhere. One of these days I might get around to fleshing it out in more depth but here it is, as it is. I’m past the halfway point in life for men in my family, though, so I know I won’t live to see more than seeds and saplings being planted. I’m content to be one of those “old men who plant trees whose shade they’ll never nap in.”
Okay, I get the little things. But eventually we’ll have to “attack” big corporations, won’t we? How do we go about replacing those with a more equal (fair, whatever) systems? Do we just eventually run them out of business? What?
Also, what about clothes? I can imagine there’d probably be some sort of system to pass it down, would there not? I’m really confused with that part of it. It’s just hard to wrap my head around, but I am trying and I’m using the internet to learn.
And I’m not saying it’s likely, but somebody has to initiate this, right? How is it completely impossible for them to end up taking advantage of it? I’m not saying it’s likely, I just want to know how we’d assure this. (Maybe I’m just being ignorant here, though.)
Anarcho communism is cool and stuff but you do realize that human nature wouldn’t allow for it to work, right? Humans are selfish. They will try to take power.
citation needed
Emma Goldman just rolled her eyes in her grave.
And wild bears break into houses because they’re looking for a tricycle to ride.
What does that have to do with anything?
Bears in captivity ride tricycles so it’s obviously “ursine nature” to behave that way.
I’m not really sure how animal abuse in captivity is relevant to the selfish nature of humans.
http://www.express.co.uk/news/uk/539611/Scientific-Study-finds-humans-selfish
And anarchism would turn into a world of what is now considered crime. Look at what people do with laws, and imagine what they would do without them.
Look at the book Animal Farm, for example. Even The Lorax works as an argument. Animal Farm was originally written as satire for Stalinist Russia. However, it has grounds in society today. Why does the US have “checks and balances” to keep one branch of government from becoming too powerful? BECAUSE HUMANS WILL TRY TO TAKE POWER IF GIVEN THE OPPORTUNITY, AND IT CORRUPTS. In Animal Farm, the pigs took power because they were the smartest. They originally were (at least supposedly) there to help the other animals. However, as time went on, since the other animals weren’t smart enough to notice or fight back, the pigs started to take advantage of them. Sure, they were animals in the book, but they were personified animals. They were showing what humans would do in that situation.Now, I know that’s Stalinist communism, not Marxism. I think communism is a beautiful idea, but I don’t think that it is possible to totally implement it in a way that would work. I don’t think humans can’t be taught. Our current way of life is too far ingrained into us, and by the time we got it learned, I find it hard to believe that the group teaching us wouldn’t have taken power.
I’m not saying I don’t like communism, I just don’t think it can be implemented properly given how ingrained in our current lifestyle we are without it backfiring somehow.
(Also if capitalism has been around longer than communism I think that it would be our nature not just conditioning)
These people.
Every time.
Without fail.
That nearly everyone is forced to read fairy tales about the dangers of inferiors unseating the status quo at some point sometime in school has absolutely nothing to do with the benefits the propertied class receive from mass political powerlessness. No way. Just ridiculous.
Animal Farm is about how bad Stalinist Russia is and the lesson is “ultimate power corrupts ultimately”. I don’t get what you’re saying.
I don’t get what’s confusing about how the pigs tried to implement communism but instead created an oligarchy.
Also, yet again, could somebody explain to me or give me sources as to how actual communism of any form would be implemented successfully? Because yes, it is better than capitalism.
If somebody can tell me how anarcho-communism would be successfully implemented or give me sources I’d be happy to listen since it’s certainly more equal and less corrupt than capitalism.
Also, if you could explain or give me sources as to how you would prevent someone from gaining power I would be happy to listen. I just don’t really see how it would work, human nature aside, even though it’s a nice idea.
Anarcho communism is cool and stuff but you do realize that human nature wouldn’t allow for it to work, right? Humans are selfish. They will try to take power.
citation needed
anarcho communist are cool. Humans can be taught to be selfish. Why can’t we be taught to be communist.
https://libcom.org/files/Anarchist%20communism%20-%20an%20introduction.pdf
“Self-determined needs”
Seems like a surefire way for some shallow people to take more than they need and do less than they can out of laziness, huh?
This form of government relies even more heavily on the honor system and full participation in the group than capitalism does. It also relies really heavily on altruism. I just don’t see how it would work.
I gave it a chance but there’s really no hope for it.
ifesbob 