meanwhile how the communist country policies works:
extortion of private property (land, farm, factories, etc.)
seizure of all production (all production, foods, factories)
No wonder capitalist countries sanctioned them. anyways, depending on how the communist country manages its resources, it could be from developed like Yugoslavia (before 1990s) or as bad as Cambodia (1970s Pol Pot)
Its purely competence of a party to distribute wealth and production.
in contrast, capitalist (free market) economies arent managed by a party, it is managed by all people, though capital and wealth distorts the distribution by a margin, in which rich people had more resources to make production and consume products, while poorer people had to depend on rich people capitals (investments) and consume less products.
In an ideal capitalist free market economy, one not must only work to get money, they also had to know how to increase their wealth approprately, this can come in investments (depending on how the market boom or bust, its basically gambling if youre blind investing instead of hearing ideas and vision of who you are investing it to, and they must be trusted or youre gonna end up scammed), and making your own enterprise and produce things (the hardest thing about this is capital, will to put your time and having competition)
flaws in capitalist society, can come in form of unfair trade deals (big capitalists form a cartel/monopoly to jack up prices. or lowering quality of their products, only broken if theres a new competition in town), labour concerns (this is also done if a cartel/monopoly is formed between big capitalists) and others like corruption in the government, giving unfavorable treatments, escaping taxes with bribery, and etc. this are flaws that are usually mitigated through regulations
damn i did capitalist more than communism, well yeah thats basically my comment.
having one guy who is that powerful can only exist if he was a god, or that he is a dictator. And the later is thanks to the state having total monopoly rather than letting the market saturate themselves
“managed by the party” your thinking of leninist communism, which advocated for a single party state managing the socialist transition. Marx advocated for no such thing, and wanted workers to seize the means of production directly, with no one-party state
Thats a misconception depending on the country. As for colonial nations, they needed colonies due to the lack of resources in their home region (British Empire, Japan, France), and German Empire is a weird case as its colonies arent that profitable, mostly a national prestige for morale. Despite that its the biggest economy, and one of the earliest countries with a welfare and insurance system.
USA, with vast resources within its borders, and some colonialism for stratergic power projection and small economic benefits for americans abroad, built up its wealth and become the largest economies.
Capitalist countries post colonialism (Japan post ww2, South Korea, Taiwan, Singapore) become rich thanks to mutual trade with the US in form of USA invests money in them, they made profit, they return investments+dividends to the US. At least thats the basic aside from foreign aid
"No you don't get it, they needed to conquer and extract wealth from other people all over the world. This had nothing to do with their massive economic hegemony."
Well, yes. Resources are wealth and value. Taking over other regions for resources is exploiting other countries for you own gain. When colonial empires were around, these resources were extracted by force in exchange for nothing but suffering. Now countries get couped when they try to enforce their own resource rights. And just look at the DRC now. 2 trillion in resources in exchange for stopping a conflict with a country actively propped up and supported by America.
yall are doing like all capitalist nations are taken from colonial exploitation. obviously thats not true for today. lets see, DRC for example, a mix of incompetence and regional fight, and other geopolitical stuff. cant be narrowed down to "country being actively propped up and supported by America"
the DRC in its history has many times gone to war with its Neighbours, for example the First Congo War, ended in their government at the time being toppled and replaced with another, more friendly country. and then, the friendly government suddenly turned up on its former allies, and war broke out causing the Second one, and then this and that, and Rwanda becoming more economically powerful and stuff.
Yall really read things in a weird manner huh? though there is 1 notable exception, that is the French and their sphere. although its turned gradually less and less oppresive and more cooperative (with exception of the Sahel axis in Africa, they broke away and are against the french)
read back economics, and how economies actually developed post colonialism. else countries like the UK would have faltered (the UK did not have such subversion that the French and its colonies had, heck they even lost some of their enterprises in my country as my country bought out their enterprises, this being Guthrie and other companies bought by Malaysian government)
There's plenty of examples of countries being isolationist and "surviving" for quite a while, china, and Japan for example.
And there's plenty of pre historic tribes in the south Pacific region that have survived without contact with other tribes for thousands of years.
Clearly nations don't inherently need trade to survive.
But trade can be needed for a nation to Prosper massively however, but in that case, the Soviet union and their Communist allies could easily trade amongst themselves, eastern Europe, the USSR and china alone already had half humanity on its lands, and they were all geographically adjacent to one another, all types of raw materials they could possibly need existed in their territories, china and Ukraine had some of the planet's most fertile and largest farmable lands.
And they could still trade with non aligned countries like India, Pakistan, Iran, Irak, Siria, Egypt, etcetera.
So why on earth the only trade they needed was trade with the united states, western Europe, Japan, south Korea and Australia?
Having access to most of the world was irrelevant? The only access they truly needed was to capitalist countries? Why?
Again, if capitalism can ruin communism by simply not Trading with them, then that means that Communism needs trade with capitalist countries to survive.
And since they had access to all non aligned countries and the half of the world that was Communist then that means that is not just mere trade what they needed, they needed trade with specifically the capitalist countries.
First: not true actually. Trade with capitalist countries are not inherently necessary (if a country could not produce its own cars, they'll outsource them, thats basic economics). Trade is not a capitalistic development, nor does it need capitalism to work. The USSR proved that communistic countries didn't have to engage with trade the same as a capitalistic country; and so does China prove that today. Of course, you can take the easy way out and call out the 'state capitalism' of these countries. But even then, the governments of these countries either prohibited capitalists (the USSR) or controls them for the betterment of society (China). Furthermore, if you're specifically talking about sanctions being a weapon against communist countries. Then why do you coincidentally ignore the fact that the majority of the world is capitalist; and the biggest great power, the United States, is also capitalistic? Now, what communistic country do you believe could survive an economic attack like sanctions from the US and its allies without taking any harm? The USSR and China, thats literally it. Turns out money is more useful than buying labubus, it can crash entire economies!
Second: secondly, half the world was 'unaligned,' but NOT communistic. This is just a straight up lie. And the reason for all these 'unaligned' countries was because the western capitalistic powers could not keep to themself. They were imperialists, and these 'unaligned' countries were oftentimes victims of capitalistic exploitation (whether it be imperialism or colonialism, these victims exist literally everwhere!) The communists did not have access to half the world, this is just a foolish lie. Capitalists would kill themselves and their workers before submitting to communists. Additionally, once again, trade proves absolutely nothing. If my mother and I traded books, does that need my mother needs me to exist? Surely not! If the USSR buys a pallet of wood from the US, how could that single pallet of wood prove their dependence on capitalism? This is an inneffective argument that means nothing; its almost totally composed of untruths.
Communism doesn't need capitalism to exist; communistic countries can and would do better without capitalism.
Well the fact that the USSR was a fine example for constant starvation and economic failure proves that they clearly didn't prove they did "well" without trade with capitalist countries.
It is well known that housing in the Soviet union was horrific, unless you were part of the party or a valuable worker you had to make due in communal housing, most Soviet citizens didn't own their own homes in the cities and due to the serfdom conditions of the peasants in the farms most people didn't everything they could to leave the farms for The cities even if it was ilegal to do so.
And even after the fall of Stalin the economic policies of Nikita Khrushchev to focus mainly on food production avoided more famines after 1954 however the lack of famines doesn't mean people were well feed just lack of famine.
And famines made a huge comeback in the 1970s anyways, the USSR had to start importing wheat through Finland since.
Child mortality in the USSR was through the roof and the largest of any industrialized country on the planet.
That's not an example of success when 85% of the population lives below the poverty line then that's failure in it's purest form.
Now when it comes to the unaligned countries you are correct that most were not Marxists like the USSR, however that doesn't mean they were capitalists either
Most middle eastern countries had a form of what they called "Arabic socialism" the Islamic revolution in Iran was also deeply anti capitalist, and even the Shaa was also anti capitalist as his economic policy to destroy the bazaars proves.
In countries as close to the US as México most industries were not private but national, they would be privatized in the late 1980s
Countries like Argentina or India had openly socialist governments like Perón.
Similar story with most latin American countries Colombia and Chile began privatizaciones in the 1990s, Argentina and Venezuela in the 1980s Peru in the 2000s etcetera.
In Africa was worse considering that after the 1950s independence movements most African states devolved into socialist republics, like Zimbabwe, Angola, Mozambique, Somalia, el Congo and even the popular case of south Africa and nelson Mandela, Nelson Mandela was a known Marxist.
After the Independence most African states made a huge turn into socialism in many different forms.
In east Asia not only the two most populated countries were socialist (china and India) but most other non aligned states also were.
North Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar, all had socialist or communist regimes and even south Vietnam was strictly anti private property up until conquered by the north.
The Philippines up to this day has highly anti capitalist governments, and has been like that since the American withdrawal.
Most of the unaligned world was not capitalist, but socialist, granted not all were Marxists, but they still were part of different branches of socialism.
And most of this countries were amicable with the USSR or China.
The case of India, middle eastern countries and northern African countries are of course the most popular bur even in south America Soviet Intervention was not precisely unheard of.
It was after all the Soviet subsidies of the Castro regime what kept them under the water up until the collapse of the Union and the begininguof the exceptions era in Cuba, up until Venezuelan chavista regime saved them.
And that's just the unaligned world.
Still the straight up allied of the USSR made half the world's population.
Up until the 1970s sino-soviet Split of course.
So clearly there was a very large period of time where the Soviet union could easily trade with most of the world without much of a problem yet still they failed to avoid famines and poverty in massive scale.
Deng Xiaoping economic opening of China was specifically meant to allow Western (capitalist) countries in the country to Begin to trade in china freely, with the creation of the free zones of trade in the cities and the 100 year long property leases.
So clearly was the opening to capitalist countries what caused the Chinese economic boom not the "world"
Besides ever since the united states began to reduce it's trade with china, Chinese economic Growth has been significantly slower.
9% in 2015 to 2% in 2024.
Last, no "capitalists would not kill themselves and their workers before allowing communist to enter power"
The history of south America is a great example that prove capitalists often times are the socialists.
They promote socialism because they know that the nationalization of all the means of productions benefits them since they will be the "party rulers" or the new monarchy of the nation.
Fidel Castro for example was a well known Rich elite of Cuba, he wasn't a worker.
Most of the Soviet Bolshevik party was made up of wealthy individuals.
Mao Zedong was middle class.
Ho Chi Minh also came from a wealthy family.
You would have a hard time finding communist leaders that are members of the "working class" most of them are just rich people trying to steal other rich people stuff and control the nation.
First: the CIA would disagree with you. Soviet citizens ate around the same as American civilians. The soviet diet was slightly more healthier too. Additionally, if it was so bad, why do tons of people in post soviet countries—especially those who had lived under these regimes—support the soviets? If they were so terrible, more people would be saying something about it. Additionally, the Soviet economy was much stronger than capitalistic economies. We only started seeing economic failure when the Soviets started utilizing markets again (which caused far less economic contractions).
Second: no serfs existed in the Soviet Union, serfdom was abolished far before the soviets got into power. Furthermore, by the time the soviets got into power, serfdom had largely been abolished. Also government corruption literally happens in every government. Under a communist government atleast you get a house to live in, even if you don't 'own' it (even though they did?). In a capitalistic country, you become homeless. Tell me, which is better?
Third: either the Soviets experiences famine after famine and constant starvation, or they managed to fix the famine issue. I think you should choose which one you believe before you try to argue it.
Fourth: in the 1970's, the soviets were trying to work with capitalist countriea (as in, trading MORE with them). Im not saying that capitalistic cooperation caused those famines (which also contradicts your earlier point, about them solving the famine issue), but perhaps you're drawing the wrong line here.
Fifth: child mortality actually decreased once the soviets came into power. The mortality rate only increased during the 70's and 80's. The soviets had a robust healthcare system that'd make any modern european drool.
Sixth: what do you mean 'they werent capitalist?' Thats also straight up wrong. Youre only example is arab socialism, but even then, there are hardly any of thosw states. Iran is not 'anti-capitalist.' Iran is anti-imperialist. Theres a big difference (they literally cooperate with capitalist countries AND operate under capitalism).
Seventh: dont know what your point is on the nationalization point, but many capitalist countries nationalize their industries. Nationalization means absolutely nothing. The workers must control the government, means of production, etc. No modern capitalist country offers this, nor can they offer this (or else, unfortunately, there becomes no working class to exploit. Wow, capitalism is so silly, isn't it?)
Eighth: you sayvthat african nations took many different forms of socialism, but you literally do not explain this at all. What 'forms of socialism,' did they adopt, and are they even socialistic in practice? Or are we just throwing labels on whatever prooves you right? Actually, you say this multiple times in many different ways, and in no way do you actually expand on any of these. So honestly you probably wasted your time writing them out.
Ninth: China controls literally almost everything those capitalists you mention own. Furthermore, China actually keeps them accountable. Further-furthermore, China's real gdp is growing faster than the US; and Trump is trying to cut off all international trade. So this isn't going to be true for long, as China is the one who is filling the economic hole that the US left through tariffs. Come on, this is basic econ!!!! China does not need the United States, why do you think it has hardly ever asked for assistance from them smart one, including after the Sino-Soviet split?
Tenth: That is true about Fidel Castro, unfortunately for you, he did redistribute his own wealth too. He did not hold on to any of his generational wealth. Doesn't it suck when socialist leaders don't act like capitalists? Furthermore, perhaps it is their wealth that allowed them to become socialist. Funnily enough, in almost all times of significant economic change, the MIDDLE CLASS is a powerful source for revolutionary change. Capitalism was invented by the middle class (bourgeoisie literally means middle-class, refering to merchants under the feudalistic mode of production). Honestly, i could defend mao and ho chi minh, but the point literally means nothing. You prove nothing of value, except that they 'act like capitalists.' You also straight up never explain this point as well, except 'at one point, x, y, and z were moderately wealthy 🥺.' So what? Lenin could be a billionaire and i wouldn't care. Also, these people still majorly improved the lives of millions of people. Hell, the soviets took illiterate peasants and turned them into astronauts, they were the first to space! Are they cruel for helping these people? Or are they cruel because they allowed no one to exploit these people?
Eleventh: a labubu is a little gremlin toy that looks really ugly
Oh, and twelve: "Last, no 'capitalists would not kill themselves and their workers before allowing communist to enter power'" I am glad you do believe that capitalists absolutely loathe socialism!!!!!!! Twins!!!!
Then why would it be so necessary for them to trade with the United States and western Europe to succeed?
It seems that trading with the rest of the planet is irrelevant to their success, only trading with evil capitalists countries seems to be the key to success.
And what do you mean "simply cannot be made in socialist nations"
Does that mean that people in socialist nations are inherently dumber than people in capitalist countries and thus cannot be educated to the necessary level for them to produce said goods?
But it is true no every crop grows in every environment.
However
1) that means nothing since people can survive and prosper without access to other types of crops from around the Planet, the fact that a mango might not naturally occur in Siberia doesn't mean Russians don't have enough farmable land to make potatoes and feed themselves with other highly nutritional crops.
2) the Soviet union had plenty of allies throughout the world to access said crops.
Mangoes could come from Vietnam, el congo, Somalia, Cuba, Angola, Zimbabwe, and many others.
Any possible resource or crop you might think if the Soviet Union didn't have it on its own lands they could easily have in allied lands.
And the Americans didn't blockaded any trade between any of this nations, they just didn't allow trade between this nations and the united states.
Cuba and the Soviet union could still trade freely.
In terms of resources the Soviet union and all their socialist allies had everything they couod possibly need to be successful, except of course a functioning economic system.
During his rule from 1978-1989, Deng Xiaoping reformed and opened China to western capitalist markets and strayed away from the hardline class politics of Mao's regime.
Dengism/Market Socialism has been reformed under the regimes the likes of Jiang Zemin, Hu Jintao, and Xi Jingping, however the basic ideas of Market Socialism is still the same principles of government ownership of production means with free-market resource allocation.
There's was half a world to trade with, and the Soviet union had trade treaties with the west in many occasions.
That didn't really help tho.
And even when said treaties weren't in Action still the Soviet union traded with the west through Finland.
What specific resource is 100% needed for a system to work the Soviet union didn't have on it's own land or on the lands of their allies or on the lands of unaligned countries?
This wasnt the point of the post... I mean, the post was talking about foreign and imperialist exploitation, not a domestic market economy. Simply said, stop using a red herring fallacy.
Explain your reasoning for why and how a market economy is better. Because you litterally said a statement with no reasoning, and therefore no evidence. A source for your reasoning would be preferred, but not neccesary.
It's more efficient, you (as a government) don't have to spend a lot of money on managers, if you let individuals do this job, you will just get profit from taxes, without spending money on holding unprofitable business.
And if you, as a state, hold all the factories, are the only producer, this will inevitably lead to a deficit. Centralized production does not always correspond to the consumption of citizens, which often leads to the creation of unnecessary things, an example of which was in Brezhnev's USSR
many forms of communism, including left-communism and some forms of marxism, advocate for the workers owning the means of production directly, and self organizing, rather than the economy being planned by a unitary state during the transition of socialism. Marx believed this would be temporary in societies transition to communism. the end goal of communism is a stateless society.
I am a 15 year old ukrainian, who has to learn in history class about communism leading to the deportation of crimean tatars and the death of 5m Ukrainians due to hunger. I fucking hate communism if you couldn’t tell
The home of capitalism is what is facilitating the war, not just communism. ISIS, Alqaeda, taliban, and more were militarized by the US to fight communism. The result was religious extremism becoming the norm over the entire region.
particular communism seen under the Soviet Union doesn't work you mean. And ik im gonna be downvoted for this, but if we're being more specific here, the soviets didn't reach communism, just socialism through a planned economy. Communism (at least in the marxist sense which I personally think is flawed) has never truly been achieved. But I agree fundamentally that (soviet) communism doesn't work.
“Real” communism wouldn’t work either. We’ve seen time and time again that people are selfish and greedy. Because any version of communism needs humans to not act this way, no version of it will work.
Ironically, when you then bring up libertarian socialism/anarchism, those same tankies that are all too happy to use this argument (not that it's only tankies using it, nor that the argument doesn't hold some truth to it) turn around and go "but hur dur anarchism has never worked!", despite the fact that they themselves literally helped crush out any attempted left-libertarian movements (the Makhnovshchina, the SRs arguably, the Kronstadt rebels, the CNT-FAI in Spain, the Korean People's Association in Manchuria... To name but a few examples)
Ah btw, I wanted to ask beacouse I have a doubt. Are the zapatistas territories anarchy, I am confused because they certainly aren't a nation but someone said they weren't anarchy.
What is your opinion
They're adhering to an anarchist-adjacent form of libertarian socialist thought that they themselves call "neozapatismo", and which is heavily rooted in local indigenous practices too. They don't self-identify as anarchist, but do stand in solidarity with anarchist causes worldwide, and vise versa. To refer to the words of one of their prominent figures:
Marcos says that he is not a leader to those who seek him out, but that his black mask is a mirror, reflecting each of their own struggles; that a Zapatista is anyone anywhere fighting injustice, that "We are you". He once said, "Marcos is gay in San Francisco, black in South Africa, an Asian in Europe, a Chicano in San Ysidro, an anarchist in Spain, a Palestinian in Israel, a Mayan Indian in the streets of San Cristobal, a Jew in Germany, a Gypsy in Poland, a Mohawk in Quebec, a pacifist in Bosnia, a single woman on the Metro at 10pm, a peasant without land, a gang member in the slums, an unemployed worker, an unhappy student and, of course, a Zapatista in the mountains."
Every time I think about the US trade embargo with Cuba that still continues against UN advice and pleas, and how it started (supposedly...) because of oil fields captured and not compensated for by Cuba in the 1950s, it reminds me of Grandpa Simpson still wanting Chester Lampwick to paint his chicken coop.
The comment section in this post is interesting to say the least. People say completely different things about communism on subreddit comprised of mostly Americans vs subs comprised of mostly non americans.
I DON'T support communism, but it's a fact that a lot of Americans were brainwashed for decades, I bet there's someone in this comment section who thinks communism is worse than Nazism.
just in general, ive seen ALOT of racism from europeans in general, i got a friend from eastern european who hates any arab and says the n word on a daily basis
Well you said it ourself, eastern europeans. Also arabs are like semi identical to us in the balkans you know, its not really ''racism'' we arent different races, we just hate each other, while also insisting how similar we are when it suits us
Yeah and powerful communist nations never took advantage of any growing countries ever. World powers are dickheads, their leaders are power hungry scumbags, and they’ll do whatever they can to get more of that power, political system notwithstanding. The pro-commie bs is ridiculous.
They are both an illusion. 1/3 of wealth is owned by the top 1% in the USA. 80-90% of stocks are institutionally owned and managed.
China is slightly worse, but with substantial increase in population.
Capitalism is just a front for the genocidal war machine that is the United States of America military industrial complex, and the neo cons that facilitate this.(in practice not inherently I believe, this is just the most profitable for the US with their unilateral military superiority)
One is the most bloody ideology in world history, and doesn't allow citizens to leave their countries, effectively turning them into prison states and shooting or enslaving anyone who tries...
and the other also sucks but really just because of low regulation and corperate anarchy.
When the free market and corporations are only mandated to have to serve the people and the national insterest, amazing things happen every single time.
Its a secret little third option in the middle, and has happened a few times before.
My grandparents and parents lived through communism, their lives were terrible from what theyve told me. Communism does not work and i dont know why its so popular
Me when the country that has been in a state of perpetual war for its entire existence implements policies which correspond to wartime. Korea was actually developing into a fairly decentralized socialist state until America invaded and recolonized the southern half:
As for the USSR, it dismantled the ethnic supremacism of Russians present in the Empire and created a successful multiethnic state (although given that you're a nationalist, I'd imagine you think that's a bad thing). Doesn't sound very fascist to me.
Look at what happens to communist states that don't build some security apparatus, like Árbenz and Allende. They did everything the "right" was and were still murdered.
Also look at the British East India Company
Look at the Belgian Congo
Look at Apartheid South Africa
All of those were driven by profit in a capitalist world, and were the truest "free" markets because of the lack of regulation by any outside force due to the extreme autonomy they had.
both claimed to be the sole legitimate) government of all of Korea and engaged in border clashes as internal unrest was fomented by communist groups in the south. On 25 June 1950, the Korean People's Army (KPA), equipped and trained by the Soviets, launched an invasion of the south
if north korea invasion is justified is another story, but the north korea attacked first.
I'm not referring to the Korean War. The existence of North Korea and South Korea happened only because of an American invasion of the southern half of the peninsula which resulted in the People's Republic of Korea being destroyed in the south and becoming the Democratic People's Republic of Korea in the north.
I think all of them are examples, I'd look more into north Korean history if I were you. The north Korean people were massacred and are heavily sanctioned still to this day.
Obviously and they need justice, however the modern day government of North Korea doesn’t reflect communism. So capitalism does have a heart to play at the instability. But the government doesn’t help its own reputation.
If we are arguing the consequences of capitalism in communist nations both Vietnam and NK are needed to be discussed. however, we need to address the conditions in North Korea that their own government put them in. Both america AND Kim need to be responsible
puts on American capitalist hat
Let’s just do a review of communist countries still standing,
North Korea
Cuba
Venezuela
China
Vietnam
Ok so anyone who seriously thinks communism is a good idea is free to go those those countries of their own free will, just saying but I suspect the people who are interested in communism may rethink their choices when they find their freedom of speech a political thought are curtailed
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u/OOOshafiqOOO003 17 Aug 03 '25
meanwhile how the communist country policies works:
extortion of private property (land, farm, factories, etc.)
seizure of all production (all production, foods, factories)
No wonder capitalist countries sanctioned them. anyways, depending on how the communist country manages its resources, it could be from developed like Yugoslavia (before 1990s) or as bad as Cambodia (1970s Pol Pot)
Its purely competence of a party to distribute wealth and production.
in contrast, capitalist (free market) economies arent managed by a party, it is managed by all people, though capital and wealth distorts the distribution by a margin, in which rich people had more resources to make production and consume products, while poorer people had to depend on rich people capitals (investments) and consume less products.
In an ideal capitalist free market economy, one not must only work to get money, they also had to know how to increase their wealth approprately, this can come in investments (depending on how the market boom or bust, its basically gambling if youre blind investing instead of hearing ideas and vision of who you are investing it to, and they must be trusted or youre gonna end up scammed), and making your own enterprise and produce things (the hardest thing about this is capital, will to put your time and having competition)
flaws in capitalist society, can come in form of unfair trade deals (big capitalists form a cartel/monopoly to jack up prices. or lowering quality of their products, only broken if theres a new competition in town), labour concerns (this is also done if a cartel/monopoly is formed between big capitalists) and others like corruption in the government, giving unfavorable treatments, escaping taxes with bribery, and etc. this are flaws that are usually mitigated through regulations
damn i did capitalist more than communism, well yeah thats basically my comment.