• Linktank@lemmy.today
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    69
    arrow-down
    19
    ·
    4 months ago

    If only there were some kind of way for it to not devolve into totalitarian dictatorship…

    • linkhidalgogato@lemmy.ml
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      27
      arrow-down
      5
      ·
      4 months ago

      lucky u, there is; its called just doing the fucking thing like normal, cuz non of the historical examples did that so u know.

      • Alteon@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        10
        arrow-down
        23
        ·
        4 months ago

        Communism inevitably will always lead to dictatorship and totalitarianism.

        In order to become a communist state, you have to: 1.) Get a bit army or group of people to enforce the upcoming rules. 2.) Force people to get rid of private ownership or threaten them to give it up. This will piss a lot of people off. 3.) Get rid of them if they don’t. This will piss a lot of people off. 4.) Realize that you’ve pissed a lot of people off, and that your the only power in the land, you definitely don’t want to give this up. 5.) Enact a single party system…oh, fuck…

        Communism doesn’t work on a large-scale, and it’s not sustainable. By it’s very nature it’s extremely prone to abuse, and fundamentally impossible to install any sort of checks and balances on a single party-system. Look how bad it is with a two-party system in the US.

        • linkhidalgogato@lemmy.ml
          link
          fedilink
          arrow-up
          4
          arrow-down
          4
          ·
          edit-2
          4 months ago

          u can believe the cia on that or u can actually fucking learn how these systems work or worked and what people who lived and live in them think of them, imma put it very plainly the percent of Americans who think amerikkka is a democracy is a LOT lower than Chinese people who think China is a democracy. And that holds true for most capitalist countries and most socialist countries past and present.

        • uis@lemm.ee
          link
          fedilink
          arrow-up
          1
          arrow-down
          1
          ·
          4 months ago

          Communism doesn’t work on a large-scale, and it’s not sustainable.

          Have you ever heard of little thing called “economy of scale”? The bigger scale is - the more sustainable it is.

          By it’s very nature it’s extremely prone to abuse, and fundamentally impossible to install any sort of checks and balances on a single party-system.

          “checks and balances” do not prevent abuse. They are not designed to.

          Look how bad it is with a two-party system in the US.

          In my opinion two-party system is worse than single-party system and full pluralism. In single-party system there is only one party to blame, while in many-parties system no party can control discourse. While in two-party system both parties can agree to screw over people and finger-point at each-other, only creating illusion of pluralism.

          And that besides societal issues two-party system creates like strong polarization.

          • PolandIsAStateOfMind@lemmy.ml
            link
            fedilink
            arrow-up
            2
            ·
            edit-2
            4 months ago

            while in many-parties system no party can control discourse

            As someone living in a country having many-party system, the discourse is perfectly controllable in the same way they are doing it in US, just with tiny extra effort. Since 1989 we didn’t had even a single anticapitalist party in parliament despite having sometimes over a dozen of them for several years. Hell in current term we have the most parties - 17 parties + 42 independent parliamentarists on 460 seats in sejm, and still what we hear from all of them is similar on every base question - no alternative to capitalism, neoliberalism in practice, and complete submission to USA and EU in all manners.

    • AngryCommieKender@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      8
      arrow-down
      3
      ·
      edit-2
      4 months ago

      Rather than placing absolute power of The State in one person’s hands, start with an elected council of members whose number is not divisible by 2. Transition to a Stateless co-op arrangement. Congratulations you just implemented Communism the way it is intended to be implemented, and no dictator could screw it up.

      • Alteon@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        1
        arrow-down
        3
        ·
        4 months ago

        …and how do you enforce it? No one is going to want to give up the land that they worked for and purchased themselves, or that they developed. Give up your rights or we imprison or kill you?

        And who controls this enforcing agency? The single party government? Because you can’t have multiple parties…how do you prevent the government from taking advantage of their position? Like, I don’t think communism is this magical fix-all that you think it is.

    • theneverfox
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      2
      arrow-down
      2
      ·
      4 months ago

      It’s really simple - centralization = seat of power

      The worst flavor of people are drawn to that like moths to a flame. It’s not even a good idea, any potential economies of scale are wasted by communication lag in the bureaucracy

      Decentralization is key. You can have a commune easy enough, humans self organize just fine in small enough communities. There’s communes all over the world doing just fine

      The question is, how do you knit those small communities together in a way that doesn’t give anyone much power, but still come together when needed?

      • Linktank@lemmy.today
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        4
        arrow-down
        2
        ·
        4 months ago

        Would you like to provide a link, or any sort of proof to back up this outlandish claim?

        • Schmoo@slrpnk.net
          link
          fedilink
          arrow-up
          5
          arrow-down
          1
          ·
          4 months ago

          Calling it communism may be a bit of a reach, but collectivist social organizing in a variety of ways was and still is a very common element of indigenous cultures around the world.

          This link focuses on family and child rearing, but it’s a good window into how Australian aboriginals express collectivist principles.

        • Cowbee [he/they]@lemmy.ml
          link
          fedilink
          arrow-up
          8
          arrow-down
          24
          ·
          4 months ago

          That wasn’t totalitarian nor a dictatorship. Soviet Democracy continued to be practiced, and Stalin’s authority wasn’t absolute or all-encompassing.

          Where does a state go from a non-totalitarian, non-dictatorship to a Totalitarian Dictatorship?

          • Kusimulkku@lemm.ee
            link
            fedilink
            arrow-up
            21
            arrow-down
            6
            ·
            4 months ago

            From the very article you linked:

            There, Lenin argued that the soviets and the principle of democratic centralism within the Bolshevik party still assured democracy. However, faced with support for Kronstadt within Bolshevik ranks, Lenin also issued a “temporary” ban on factions in the Russian Communist Party. This ban remained until the revolutions of 1989 and, according to some critics, made the democratic procedures within the party an empty formality, and helped Stalin to consolidate much more authority under the party. Soviets were transformed into the bureaucratic structure that existed for the rest of the history of the Soviet Union and were completely under the control of party officials and the politburo.

            Very democratic indeed lol. Can’t wait how they ensure democracy in North Korea next.

            • AntiOutsideAktion@lemmy.ml
              link
              fedilink
              English
              arrow-up
              8
              arrow-down
              8
              ·
              edit-2
              4 months ago

              according to some critics

              Hey look at what the core of the quote you pulled is

              I wonder what the ideology of those critics is

              Very democratic indeed lol. Can’t wait how they ensure democracy in North Korea next.

              Objectively more democratic than the US. In the US you vote for president and they appoint the ministers of every executive agency. In Korea they vote for those directly.

              • Kusimulkku@lemm.ee
                link
                fedilink
                arrow-up
                6
                arrow-down
                3
                ·
                4 months ago

                Can’t wait how they ensure democracy in North Korea next

                Objectively more democratic than the US.

                In Korea they vote for those directly.

                They certainly have an interesting method.

                Each candidate is preselected by the North Korean government and there is no option to write in a different name, meaning that voters may either submit the ballot unaltered as a “yes” vote or request a pen to cross out the name on the ballot.

                A person’s vote is not secret

                Uhhum.

                • AntiOutsideAktion@lemmy.ml
                  link
                  fedilink
                  English
                  arrow-up
                  5
                  arrow-down
                  4
                  ·
                  edit-2
                  4 months ago

                  Wow you sure did copy and paste from a wikipedia article that doesn’t even bother to source the claim to any of the overtly state propaganda articles at the bottom of the page it uses as a bibliography.

                  And you didn’t even bother mentioning where you got it so we’re 2 levels of lack of citations deep.

                  Gee I wonder why leftists constantly criticize anti-communists for being intellectually lazy and dishonest…

                  • Kusimulkku@lemm.ee
                    link
                    fedilink
                    arrow-up
                    2
                    arrow-down
                    6
                    ·
                    4 months ago

                    I mean I assumed (correctly) you’d figure it was from Wikipedia. How does the North Korean government describe their elections process?

            • Cowbee [he/they]@lemmy.ml
              link
              fedilink
              arrow-up
              8
              arrow-down
              20
              ·
              4 months ago

              I linked the absolute most liberal friendly source for you. Banning factionalism didn’t mean they banned democracy. Banning of factionalism was done when there were literal fascists and Capitalists trying to infiltrate the party and reinstate Tsarism for their profits. You were allowed to have different ifeas, voice them, and vote on them.

              • Kusimulkku@lemm.ee
                link
                fedilink
                arrow-up
                13
                arrow-down
                2
                ·
                edit-2
                4 months ago

                It’s very kind of you to have chosen that as a source but it seems to have been an unfortunate pick.

                Banning of factionalism was done when there were literal fascists and Capitalists trying to infiltrate the party and reinstate Tsarism for their profits.

                It just happens that that was claimed to happen always, so you know, ban was only liften in 1989 as the article mentions lol. Funny how that happens.

                You were allowed to have different ifeas, voice them, and vote on them.

                Not even mentioning the lack of press freedom but Stalin famously purged a shitload of people on the basis of their political opinions. And voting in a strictly controlled single-party state, it does have the sound of a empty formality as the article had it.

                • Cowbee [he/they]@lemmy.ml
                  link
                  fedilink
                  arrow-up
                  7
                  arrow-down
                  16
                  ·
                  4 months ago

                  It just happens that that was claimed to happen always, so you know, ban was only liften in 1989 as the article mentions lol. Funny how that happens.

                  Looks like it was true! Millions of people died when the USSR was illegally dissolved afterwards, and the majority of living former-soviets say they prefered the Soviet System.

                  Not even mentioning the lack of press freedom but Stalin famously purged a shitload of people on the basis of their political opinions. And voting in a strictly controlled single-party state, it does have the sound of a empty formality as the article had it.

                  Liberalism and fascism were banned. Additionally, it is not at all an empty formality, unless you think every human being in a political party shares the exact same opinions, which is laughably false.

                  • Kusimulkku@lemm.ee
                    link
                    fedilink
                    arrow-up
                    12
                    arrow-down
                    5
                    ·
                    4 months ago

                    It’s always the case that authoritarian countries use a foreign threat as the reasoning for being so authoritarian. Tale as old as time.

                    Liberalism and fascism were banned.

                    So you think capitalist countries banning communist parties is all fine and dandy? Because that’s not terribly democratic if you ask me.

                    Additionally, it is not at all an empty formality, unless you think every human being in a political party shares the exact same opinions, which is laughably false.

                    It’s an empty formality when it’s a single party, loyalty to is is demanded and any real criticism can lead you to be fucking killed. Stalin did not take this shit lightly and lots of people died as a result.

                  • Prandom_returns@lemm.ee
                    link
                    fedilink
                    arrow-up
                    2
                    arrow-down
                    7
                    ·
                    4 months ago

                    Looks like it was true! Millions of people died when the USSR was illegally dissolved afterwards, and the majority of living former-soviets say they prefered the Soviet System.

                    What a bunch of fucking nonsense, holy shit…

              • GoodEye8@lemm.ee
                link
                fedilink
                English
                arrow-up
                4
                arrow-down
                3
                ·
                4 months ago

                You were allowed to have different ifeas, voice them, and vote on them.

                There’s an entire wiki page dedicated to how the USSR repressed scientific ideas and promoted absolute idiocracy (such as Lysenkoism) because of politics. If something as (relatively) objective as science wasn’t allowing different ideas you can only imagine what was happening in areas that are far more subjective.

                And I can tell you that the “democratic voting” was also just a farce. I can’t find the source anymore but voting didn’t really have oversight. It’s in their voting guidebook, the people counting the votes are also the people who verify the votes. That means the voting committee gets to assign votes however they want because they’re also the ones verifying the votes. From a certain political level onwards the political elite chose who gets what political position. Lysenko is actually excellent example of that because the scientific community hated him, but Stalin loved him and so Lysenko got to fuck up science for multiple decades.

                • Cowbee [he/they]@lemmy.ml
                  link
                  fedilink
                  arrow-up
                  7
                  arrow-down
                  5
                  ·
                  4 months ago

                  There’s an entire wiki page dedicated to how the USSR repressed scientific ideas and promoted absolute idiocracy (such as Lysenkoism) because of politics. If something as (relatively) objective as science wasn’t allowing different ideas you can only imagine what was happening in areas that are far more subjective.

                  The USSR was overall very pro-science. In it’s early years, it went through growing pains, as their number one task was centered around instilling Marxism in the population. Marxism itself is founded on Dialectical and Historical Materialism. Certain liberal sciences had been, at the time, focused on Idealism, such as Race Science.

                  And I can tell you that the “democratic voting” was also just a farce. I can’t find the source anymore but voting didn’t really have oversight. It’s in their voting guidebook, the people counting the votes are also the people who verify the votes. That means the voting committee gets to assign votes however they want because they’re also the ones verifying the votes. From a certain political level onwards the political elite chose who gets what political position. Lysenko is actually excellent example of that because the scientific community hated him, but Stalin loved him and so Lysenko got to fuck up science for multiple decades.

                  Do you have evidence that the Soviets were assigning votes?

                  • GoodEye8@lemm.ee
                    link
                    fedilink
                    English
                    arrow-up
                    4
                    arrow-down
                    3
                    ·
                    4 months ago

                    In it’s early years, it went through growing pains, as their number one task was centered around instilling Marxism in the population.

                    So like the first 3-4 decades? Because they didn’t really turn towards pro-science until the 50s when their ideological science interfered with the nuclear program. And the charlatan Lysenko remained as the director of the Institute of Genetics until 1965.

                    Do you have evidence that the Soviets were assigning votes?

                    Of course not. None of the voting results exist, at least I haven’t found any and I did search for them. In fact searching for them is how I stumbled upon the official voting guidebook where it’s written that the voting committee counts and verifies the votes, which leaves the door open for vote manipulation.

                    Just as I can’t prove they were manipulating votes you can’t prove they weren’t and it comes down to whether you want to believe it or not. Personally I think if they have an official loophole to fudge results then the people in power would use it to stay in power.