• @Eldritch@lemmy.world
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      32 years ago

      Let’s be honest. Lenin is the problem. Karl Marx was a philosopher who spoke with a lot of figurative language. Which Lenin treated as all literal dogma. And I am here to tell you taking figurative work literally is one of the worst decisions you can make. Just like evangelicals who take the bible literally. When it isn’t even a coherent work of fiction. Let alone a solid system of rule and law.

      Absolute power corrupts absolutely. As can be clearly seen in every major country that has tried Lenin’s blind ideology. (Cuba had some special circumstances that kept it from spiraling as fast as the others. Plus Venezuela is still a bit early to call. But likely will get there) Or pretty much every major capitalist nation as well. With Lenin as the lynchpin consistently making bad decisions. (Stalin) I think it’s probably safe to say he had good intentions. But was far out of his depth and it showed.

      And I’m not some liberal, or fascist critiquing from the right. Just a pro social democracy slightly libertarian leaning socialist.

    • poVoq
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      -42 years ago

      Lenin was a counterrevolutionary that brutally suppressed any dissent and directly placed Stalin (being well aware of what a person he was) in a position that would make his later takeover possible.

  • @CthulhuOnIce@sh.itjust.works
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    142 years ago

    People in the comments with a completely fictionalized idea of Lenin as some kind of libertarian hippie who hated Stalin’s “authoritarianism” vs people in the comments with a completely fictionalized idea of Lenin as a “counterrevolutionary” (lol) or despot

  • TimeSquirrel
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    2 years ago

    Technically, none of these countries experienced “communism”. They experienced tankie-led hell holes. Never trust a tankie. They’ll ally with you to fight for “the people” and then stab you in the back when they get a taste of power and don’t need you anymore.

  • @zbych@szmer.info
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    72 years ago

    This statue in Poland was few weeks long artist performance made few years ago near place, where Lenin’s statue standed in Nowa Huta until 1989.

    • @Akasazh@feddit.nl
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      242 years ago

      Technically correct. They were under Stalins Marxism-Leninism, which was supposed to be a placeholder until true communism could be implemented.

      But it’s a bit disingenuous to split that hair in this thread. The irony being that the latter are all countries that got to experience the kind of gouvernemental structure that Lenin facilitated.

    • @BeigeAgenda@lemmy.ca
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      122 years ago

      You can argue if they had sunshine scenario communism all day, but they certainly was under the oppressive thumb of USSR.

      • @SpiderShoeCult@sopuli.xyz
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        112 years ago

        Do not feed the troll. Strange fellas, lying on the internet, arbitrarily defining communism to suit their rose-colored ideology is no basis for a system of debate.

        True debate stems from a knowledge of history, past events and conditions that led to them, not some farcical comment (as the one you are replying to).

        If I went around in communist times claiming I knew what Marxism-Leninism was just because I read a manifesto, they’d send the secret police after me.

          • @AnarchoYeasty@beehaw.org
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            62 years ago

            That’s a whack article whose author is pretty confused. Antihierarchical action is inherently not authoritarian unless you are creating new hierarchy. Also isn’t it convenient that our system of liberalism is good and just and normal people believe it but only crazy dangerous psychopaths believe in a ideology founded on liberation from the forces that oppress us.

            There are plenty of articles discussing how capitalists are fucking psychopaths too.

      • 🦄🦄🦄
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        72 years ago

        I didn’t say anything about communism being good or bad there, just that none of those countries ever lived under communism.

        • Catweazle
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          42 years ago

          @Duke_Nukem_1990 @BeigeAgenda, correct, the key is the sovereignty of the people, not that of a single person or a small elite, this would reduce the communist system to a mere fascist dictatorship just as rotten as capitalism called democracy and where banks and multinationals dictate the rules, thereby it is not a democracy.

    • PrettyFlyForAFatGuy
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      -182 years ago

      True Communism is impossible to sustain in the real world. it requires someone unimpeachable at its head. It affords too much power and no accountability to those in charge. Even if it were to start out well, sooner or later corruption would seep in. Communism is impossible while human greed exists

      • Dr. Jenkem
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        172 years ago

        Capitalism is impossible to sustain in the real world. It’s literally killing the planet which will result in the extinction of the human race.

      • 🦄🦄🦄
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        162 years ago

        There would be no one “in charge”. Communism and anarchy go hand in hand.

        human greed

        This is the lie that we have been fed all of our lives under capitalism. It’s so ingrained in us that some of us can’t even imagine a world of helping each other thrive instead of exploiting each other.

            • PrettyFlyForAFatGuy
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              -82 years ago

              Exactly, Which brings us back to my initial point… True communism is impossible… try to keep up…

              • 🦄🦄🦄
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                32 years ago

                You didn’t say true communism is impossible, you said true communism is impossible to sustain. Why are you moving the goalpost instead of just taking the L? Lol

      • @Kwakigra@beehaw.org
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        42 years ago

        The main issue with words like “socialism” and “communism” is that the definition of those words depends entirely on personal political biases, and most people unaware of this assume their personal definition is the same definition used by the person they’re arguing with. The word “socialism” was in use even prior to Marx and has many definitions, and “Communism” is an ideal rather than an explicit governmental structure. That being the case, the word socialism can be understood to mean “the government acts in the interest of average people rather than solely for its ruling class,” “workers themselves own the means of production rather than individuals or institutions,” or “there should be some kind of welfare state.” Communism can be understood to mean “a series of self-governing autonomous communities in the absence of social or economic hierarchy of any kind,” “A marxist-leninist inspired system of state centralization which ostensibly governs on behalf of the people,” or “any authoritarianism of any kind taking place at any point in history.”

        All this is to say if you find yourself feeling strongly for or against “socialism” or “communism” and are in conversation with someone with the opposite perspective of that term, try to establish a mutual understanding of what is being disagreed upon before engaging. For example, I agree that any system which lacks checks on leadership (or strongly depends on leadership in general) has fundamental issues but I am still sympathetic to socialism, communism, and anarchism which are ideals which have not yet been achieved sustainably or meaningfully.

  • @Filthmontane@lemmy.world
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    02 years ago

    You’re showing statues of Lenin in countries in which the Dictatorship of the Proletariat failed to cede power to the working class and establish a socialist economic structure.

    When Lenin took power, Russia had nothing. It was in the middle of WW1, there were regular famines, almost everyone was illiterate, and it was in no condition to establish a socialist economic plan. So, Lenin created a temporary economic model called The Dictatorship of the Proletariat. This is a centrally planned economy designed to rapidly develop infrastructure and industry in a country that has none. Lenin was already ceding power to the worker’s councils when he died. Stalin decided he liked The Dictatorship of the Proletariat and did not cede power back to the worker’s councils.

    Those countries never experienced Communism. They never even experienced socialism. They destroyed those statues because they hated The Dictatorship of the Proletariat. Living in a system designed for a short temporary economic boom for decades is no fun.

    • @Gxost@lemmy.world
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      12 years ago

      So-called “dictatorship of proletariat” was simply a terror. Lots of philosophers and religious elite was killed just because they weren’t compatible with communist ideology. Rich peasants who didn’t even use others labor were either robbed or killed. Peasants lost their land and had to work for the country. People got killed just because some anonyms told they did something bad. I know this because it happened to my ancestors. My grand-grandfather lost his house, communists left only one room for his family. His friends, all good people, dissapeared. His daughters never played with neighbor’s kids because of fear. My other grand-grandfather lost land and two horses. His brother was killed for not agreeing to give away his house. And my another grand-grandfather was killed because an anonymous letter. He was communist and thought he was safe as he did nothing wrong. His kids couldn’t get education because they were “children of the enemy of the people”. Much later my grandfather got a paper concluding that execution of his father was a mistake. It was horrible time, and lots of people thought the ones who were killed were “pests” or “enemies of the people”, so killing them was good and beneficial for the society.

    • CHINESEBOTTROLL
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      02 years ago

      countries in which the Dictatorship of the Proletariat failed to cede power to the working class and establish a socialist economic structure

      Oh, so like every single other place that tried to implement that deranged system? Thank you for this very important distinction.

      • @bouh@lemmy.world
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        02 years ago

        What about all these capitalist places that fell into fascism? What about the successful capitalist states that are currently falling into fascism?

        • CHINESEBOTTROLL
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          02 years ago

          What about them? The choices here are not “what we have now” vs “trust the people that want to try communism again”

          • @bouh@lemmy.world
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            02 years ago

            My point is about the flawed argument : “communism is bad because the attempts have failed”. Well, there are more capitalist attempts that failed than communist ones, so the argument doesn’t hold.

            • CHINESEBOTTROLL
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              02 years ago

              My argument is not “look how many attempts have failed” but “look, of all of these many attempts, every single one has turned into a kafkaesque nightmare”. At this point it is not even clear that “successful communism” is something that can exist in our world

              On the other hand, while many (depending on your perspective you might even say most) capitalist systems fail, there are absolutely some that work ok. Of course nothing is perfect in the real world. But the life of say a danish person is not only materially well off, but also free and full of dignity, which was true of none of the experiments in communism

              • @bouh@lemmy.world
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                -12 years ago

                I’m pretty sure many Chinese are well off, free and full of dignity.

                It’s also easier to be a successful country when you’re not under ambargo just because you’re not sold to capitalist companies. Did the US left even one communist country live normally?

                But more importantly, how many successful capitalist countries, today, aren’t going fascist at full speed?

  • @ricecake@lemmy.ml
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    -12 years ago

    Lenin is a good author. I enjoy reading about communism, I have read Kropotkin and plan to read Lenin, etc. That being said communism sucks, unless you can find a way to distribute power, I suggest BTC, otherwise you will have another Holodomor/Great Leap Forward. Russian USSR quite literally sucked the life out of Ukrainian USSR like some sort of spirit sucker. RIP to all victims of Holodomor and Great Leap Forward 🕯️

  • KrupskayaPraxis
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    -12 years ago

    Forgot to mention it’s the people in power who hate those statues, not the everyday people