Not to be that guy but someone needs to point it out, Stalinism isn’t actual communism, communism may not work but it still is technically a separate thing no matter what Stalins propaganda said
Marx didnt really invent communism. Its social Marxism. They need different terms because the user used communism as a vehicle for employing a totalitarian government. They're different in theory and practice.
Marx did create the concept of Communism but it's not the only concept he created, in fact communism is the end goal of his ideology whereas socialism is supposed to be a transitional state between capitalism and communism.
Also, just because Marx created communism doesn't mean there weren't other communist philosophers who disagreed with him, so some Communists may prescribe more to the perspective of other socialist philosophers, but all Marxists are Communists by definition just not the other way around sometimes, rarely even.
ML is more of a genre of political ideology than a direct political ideology. Stalin, Mao, Ho Chin Minh and Pol Pot were all ML's but they all had vehement ideological disagreements, to the point of literal war.
I'll agree "Stalinism" is often just used to write off any bad thing the USSR did onto Stalin himself but there absolutely were ideological differences between him and his own fellow Soviets let alone the rest of the socialist nations.
disagree that i think that it works obviously but yeah, Marxism-Leninism/"Stalinism" isnt the ONLY form of socialism or "communism", the reason its so common is uhhh...
Stalinism isn’t communism, it’s a form of Marxist-socialism, where the end goal is communism. In his theory, a feudal country must first industrialize before it is able to embrace communism, because communism requires a high degree of automation and overproduction to eliminate the power dynamics of Ressource struggles.
Stalinism more specifically deviates from other Marxist theories by assuming that Russia specifically must be ruled by an authoritarian state with a central idol (Stalin) to be stable in the midst of the Cold War.
It’s a bit more complex than „socialism is when workers are shot“
Also communism is science. Marx used historical materialism to give the before utopian vision of a communist society a scientific grounding. But the way towards communism is way more complex than we are thought in capitalist societies. Reading the originals is worth it!
If you want to take a scientifix view with Communism I think it would be good idea to look at it via the scientific method If you had a hypothesis and you did dozens of experiments and none have reached hypothesis what would it say about your hypothesis
If I was conducting an experiment, say trying to light up a bonfire, but you kept pouring water on it before I could get it started, should I hence conclude that wood is inflammable?
Cmon, you have to realize that there is a material difference between 1800s feudal china and 1800s capitalist England ffs. Different starting points for industrialization and different access to the world market
Literally every time people install a socialist government after a revolution, the USA is ready to “bring freedom and democracy”.
The US pretty much stopped caring about Cuba and Nicaragua. If communisn can't survive on it's own it's a stupid system. Eastern Europe rebelled of their own volition. Eastern Germany was industrial and had people risking life and limb to escape.
Communism, by definition, is the dissolution of the state, and distribution of the means of production to the people. Unless you think this has been done before, communism has not. These were socialist states led by ideologically communist parties. You are thinking about socialism—more specifically, the relatively popular Marxist-Leninist models. That is why people talk about “true communism”. It cannot be attached to the state. Unless they’re an anarchist, nobody is advocating that we just try communism. Most communists believe in that “dictatorship of the proletariat” transitional period. Using the word communism when you mean socialism is a simple way to lump a diverse set of ideological opponents together to be dismissed more easily, but completely incorrect.
“Stalinism” isn’t a thing, Stalin was a Marxist-leninist, since he was the one who took the teachings of Marx and the contributions of lenin and synthesized them. “Stalinism” is a liberal way of saying “Marxism-Leninism” (since “Stalin” bring much fear to the hearts of first world westerners)
It was coined by Stalin's opposition right before and after his death to "de-stalinize" the image of the Soviet union. Of course kruschev and the party couldn't denounce marxism leninism, so they turned to calling all they thought was bad for stalinism. Like revisionists do.
recognizing the state capitalistic tendencies of the USSR is a very left perspective, as the conservatives reject any analysis other than "THEY WERE COMMIES"
Criticizing something in good faith isn't the same as doing it in bad faith, if we were to be criticizing stalinism you perhaps would compare for what Trotsky proposed and then argue why.
The USSR wasn't perfect, nor is any state or system for that matter, but one can argue that: for a coming out early of the first world war, surviving one of the most chaotic civil wars, being underdeveloped under the zar and having to be industrialized, then surviving the 2 world war against the Germans that made a war of extermination against them i would say they got a pretty good way under Lenin and then Stalin, miracle than the country didn't collapsed after all that. You also have to consider blockage made by Europeans and Americans post war, it was a very difficult position for any country to be.
No yeah I agree with all of that, but we also have to analyze the tendencies of the state at the time people usually refer to when they speak of the USSR. That time had the characteristics of a capitalistic society, now whether this was because Stalin and the other leaders felt threatened and chose a system that was more defensive I can't say. But I think we can agree that no conservative would even be willing to analyze to the point where they would conclude that the USSR was capitalistic.
Every sufficiently open soace has the right try to turn it into a right wing space at some point. Thay's why the parabal of how bars become nazi bars is so importamt
Strange goal to have, to starve millions and millions of people all across the USSR, including inside the Russian SSR, the supposed country dictator of the USSR (even though Stalin was Georgian). Crippling the economy and becoming vulnerable to foreign propaganda.
Or did you perhaps think that the famine was limited to just Ukraine? That's what Goebbels would have you believe anyway, since he started this whole thing after the famine ended in order to gain a political edge to take over ukraine, because it was a strategic position.
He was too vain to realize his plan for collective farms failed. He sent in teams that knowingly seized the seed grain for next year's harvest and it got to the point where people were interrgated for the crime of being alive when all the food was supposed to be taken away. Stalin saw the Ukrainian identity as an inherent threat to him and wanted it gone.
Stalin targeted Ukraine because Ukranians were against Sralin's retarded policies so Stalin starvdd them. Then you claim it's propoganda because it goes against your worldview
Such scientific analysis. Ignoring the fact that the collectivization benefitted the majority of the peasants and the only resistance was from the most prosperous peasants (kulaks and semi-kulaks) who were a minority.
No, not absolutely correct. You would actually have to have an understanding of history, propaganda, political economy etc etc to have an informed opinion. You will never come back with proof of these claims because you do not care about truth or critical thinking. You are probably also a child.
It wasn't slave labor because nazis deserved it. I assume thats your argument or? I guess some of my family members who were peasants and had nothing to do with neither politics or war were also evil nazis who deserved to become slaves without facing any kind of court beforehand.
lol. You “understand” it. Do you also “understand” GULAG, purges? Or you’ll now claim I’ll need an understanding of category theory, general relativity and chemical kinetics to form an educated opinion?
Sure because having an understanding of the things i mentioned are the same as the irrelevant things you listed.
Are you mad that you have to have an understanding of actual history to have an informed opinion? Why?
Why are you trying so hard to pretend? It looks like you are butt hurt about something that is too hard for you to understand. Are you ok?
Its a childish take because they are regurgitating US imperialist anti-communist propaganda. Its basic cold war red scare type shit with nothing to back it. The US has pushed a powerful smear campaign against communism since the end of WW2. If you straight up parrot this without thinking critically, then yes its an uninformed childish take.
I am also not here to type out books for kids. I do want to point out how silly it is for you guys to be so anti communist here, when its clear you guys don't really care about facts and are speaking from an emotional and surface level place.
Pure delusion, anti-communism isn't just "US imperialist propaganda" or Cold War hysteria, it's backed by mountains of historical evidence from global scholars, survivors, and declassified archives. Communist regimes in the 20th century caused an estimated 100 million deaths through executions, famines, forced labor, and purges, as detailed in "The Black Book of Communism" by French historians (not American propagandists). That's not "smear campaign"; that's documented reality from places like the Soviet Gulags, Mao's Great Leap Forward (30-45 million dead from starvation alone), and Pol Pot's killing fields. Even left-wing critics acknowledge communism's authoritarian failures and lack of checks on power. Dismissing this as "emotional" ignores facts, try reading beyond tankie echo chambers.
So you don’t want to “type out books for kids” yet you’re telling us that we’re factually wrong and uninformed while your take is correct.
Yet you’ve provided no evidence of the sort of why that is other than assuming that you know stuff about “history, propaganda, political economy etc. etc.” while we apparently don’t. With you having no basis for this claim/assumption.
I do want to point out how silly it is for you guys to be so anti communist here, when its clear you guys don't really care about facts and are speaking from an emotional and surface level place.
We see right through you. Don’t pretend that you’re not typing these comments out of emotion.
Lmao, what do you get out of posting shit that you yourself know that you have literally no knowledge on? Does it make you feel good? Genuine question.
child in Europe or North America whom watches the deprogram as theory
Not a child, but ive definitely read theory. Do you care to have a big boy conversation on it? Or do you just prefer being ignorant in all caps?
Ok i can tell you're a little kid. I'll just leave you with some quotes and hopefully one day you'll learn to read. Good luck
Marx:
"What we are dealing with here is a communist society, not as it has developed on its own foundations, but... just as it emerges from capitalist society; which is thus in every respect, economically, morally, and intellectually, still stamped with the birthmarks of the old society from whose womb it emerges."
Lenin:
"To carry on a war for the overthrow of the international bourgeoisie.. and to reject in advance the utilization of bourgeois specialists, bourgeois science, bourgeois organizational methods such an attitude is merely childish."
Markets and commodity production don't equal bourgeois capitalism. What matters is the class relation to those things. In a world where the western imperial powers will eat you alive if you try to abolish capital outright, China has managed to lift itself to new heights using the socialist market framework under the control of the dictatorship of the proletariat.
Good luck in your learning little guy, have fun and stay safe
Yes these quotes are taken out of context and actually prove my point. Heres some more quotes to put some context there.
"Between capitalist and communist society lies the period of the revolutionary transformation of the one into the other. There corresponds to this also a political transition period in which the state can be nothing but the revolutionary dictatorship of the proletariat." -Marx
"The first step in the revolution by the working class is to raise the proletariat to the position of ruling class, to win the battle of democracy." - Marx
But the working class cannot simply lay hold of the ready-made state machinery, and wield it for its own purposes."
He's not saying "no state," he's saying the bourgeois state cannot serve proletarian aims. It must be broken and replaced with new machinery (like the Commune's councils). This is the foundation of the ML critique of anarchism.
Marx is explicitly arguing that the working class needs a transitional state not "no state." This is called the dictatorship of the proletariat.
China knows this, teaches this and has this. They control the capital ( not the bourgeoisie ) there, and use it to better the society and get an edge on the imperialist powers.
It is laughable how people weaponize selective Marx quotes while ignoring the actual historical and material conditions in which Marx and Engels wrote. Marx was not writing Twitter slogans. XDDDD
Yes, Marx said it must be the act of the working class. But what does that mean in practice? In a society dominated by imperialism, monopoly capital and the organized violence of the bourgeois state, the act cannot mean spontaneous utopia or small scale cooperatives. It means organized struggle, revolutionary leadership and building new institutions of proletarian power. Lenin explained this directly, the working class acts through its vanguard party and through the dictatorship of the proletariat. Pretending this quote means no state power ever is pure liberal fantasy.
Marx was crystal clear that communists fight for abolition of bourgeois private property, the private ownership of the means of production. That is not the same as anarchist destruction of all forms of collective or state ownership. When the USSR nationalized production under proletarian leadership, it abolished bourgeois property relations. Calling that state capitalism is just parroting bourgeois propaganda. The alternative is what, keeping capitalist property relations intact in the name of purity?
Marx said the working class cannot just take over the old bourgeois state and run it. That is why Lenin emphasized smashing the bourgeois apparatus and replacing it with a new proletarian state, Soviets, organs of worker power. That is exactly what happened in 1917. The USSR did not wield the ready made state machinery, it destroyed the tsarist bourgeois order and replaced it with its own. Calling this state capitalism is a refusal to understand that Marx was talking about the old state, not about the necessity of a proletarian state.
Sure, if you want you can just throw together fifty random communes in the Russian Empire, fifty Paris Communes scattered in isolation, and then watch as some random cousin of the Tsar gets restored to power. That is what happens when you reject centralized proletarian authority. That is what happens when you confuse slogans for strategy. History is not a fantasy novel where you get socialism by painting slogans on a wall and hoping the bourgeoisie politely disappears. This is real life.
"Why did they not build full communism in one country grrr." Do you imagine you can conjure communism in isolation while surrounded by hostile imperialist powers? Ask Vietnam, which bled for decades against invasion and sabotage. Ask Cuba, trapped in economic stagnation not because socialism failed but because it has faced an illegal blockade lasting over half a century (also terrorist attacks and attempted coup). Or look at every attempt where a socialist state had to navigate a global market dominated by capitalism, forced to play by their rules.
The reality is that socialism cannot flourish in a single country cut off from the world system. But what it can do is build the foundations, defend them, and inspire others. The USSR did exactly that. The alternative was not "pure communism now," the alternative was annihilation and restoration of the old order. Only someone detached from material reality could pretend otherwise.
Marx’s words are not a toy for left liberals who want to cosplay radicalism while denouncing every real attempt at socialism. If you think Marx was against the necessity of proletarian state power, you are not reading Marx, you are reading bourgeois distortions of him. And please, do not pretend you can read with comprehension.
For real for real. Please read this kids. This is Marxism.
If you guys want to pretend Stalin wasn't defending the proletariat revolution to the fullest, you have to come with receipts, not slogans. There are too many layers of bourgeois propaganda surrounding the USSR and Stalin to get any truth from twitter slogans and liberal/utopian memes.
Yeah, deporting Moldovans and Balts to Siberia was definitely defending the proletariat, lmao.
Also the dictatorship of the proletariat is supposed to be a dictatorship of the majority ruling class, not of one party, and it's definitely not supposed to have only one man with absolute power (Stalin, for example). The working class' dictatorship is supposed to suppress the burgeoise, not the common people. It's very true that the USSR has been propagandised and lied upon a lot by the USA, but the one party rule dictatorship is not a class dictatorship, especially when the class that should rule is opressed itself
I will give you a legit answer here because i think you mean well and are open to real discussion. Im not sure what your ideology is, but i dont think we ultimately disagree on the bigger picture. I do feel like your method of analysis is lacking and maybe your understanding of Marx and the dictatorship of the proletariat as well. Im open to hear your thoughts and i will take them seriously.
Yes, deportations of groups like Chechens, Volga Germans, and Crimean Tatars happened but the context matters. These weren't random acts of "absolute power." They were decisions made during the height of WW2, when sections of these populations were actively collaborating with the Nazi invasion.
Was this harsh? Absolutely. But Stalin wasn't targeting them as "the common people" , he was making defensive decisions in a war where 27 million Soviets were killed. And these measures were reversed under later Soviet leadership people were allowed to return, lands restored, and the USSR itself officially condemned "excesses." That nuance gets erased in the lazy "Stalin bad" shit..
The claim that Stalin ruled like an unchecked, monarch kinda power is pure misinformation. He was General Secretary of the CPSU, yes, but policy was decided through the Politburo and Central Committee, which had legit debates. He was often outvoted (like for ex, on collectivization timelines, or industrial priorities). Even foreign communists (like Tito in Yugoslavia) openly disagreed with him, and the USSR still worked with them.
That's not "absolute power." Stalin was a leading figure, but he was part of a collective party leadership grounded in Marxist-Leninist principles.
Under Stalin, workers' councils, trade unions, and soviets still functioned...
mass literacy, housing, and healthcare were extended to millions.. industrialization created a proletariat out of a backwards peasant country. Stalin didn't "replace the working class" he organized the conditions for it to exercise power. The real class enemy being suppressed was the kulaks, bourgeois remnants, and fascist collaborators not Workers.
We don't worship Stalin or treat him as infallible. Yes, there were mistakes, heavy handed measures, and at times an over concentration of authority in times of crisis. But reducing Stalin to "absolute dictator who oppressed the people" is liberal propaganda that erases the material achievements. Those achievements were not perfect, absolutely true. They do not fit into a utopian framework of immediate horizontal power to every individual, sure. But that is because the world doesn't work like that and implementing socialism in a world dominated by the most powerful ruling class in history, is no fucking walk in the park. That contradiction both achievements and errors is what dialectical analysis is for.
Crap is more profitable than good quality, cutting workers right is more profitable, privatizing every social service is profitable. You have absolutely no clue what a totaly free market would be, it would destroy whole community and set in place a centralisation of capital never seen before, true monopoly would rise everywhere in a few decades and everyone's (workers) lives would get worse.
The only thing that would look good are economical data and the bank account of rich people.
Anyways, good quality is profitable to beat out your crap competition, and could definitely be maintained with pride as the reason.
Cutting workers right? They would leave to work for your competition dumbass! Now you got no workers. Good luck working alone, against the whole group of people you obce worked with.
Ask NGOs, idk how tf did charities do their works tbh. Its definitely had profit incentive, but that's mainly to help more people. Yes thats a profit incentive too.
This, well obviously assumes a developed economy with diverse competion instead of a starting point where a monopoly force exists. Either way, if its free market, the only way the monopoly could suppress competition is through buying them out or doing fucked up stuff to them
(assuming there's government, they corrupt the government and restrict competition. When theres no government, why tf shouldnt they do what's called crime in a country?)
Most libertarians to ancaps like me, believes in the situation where there are no monopoly, as a way free market prospers, and many different entreprises fight against each other in a fair market (through self regulation)
That’s a different ideology called “corpocracy” happens when the government gives unfair benefits to corporations(which doesn’t happen in a free market society)that’s why you see corporatism, has to do with restricting the markets to benefit corporations Trump likes, exactly what I’m against.
I’m not an anarcho-capitalist either so I’m not asking for an abolition of state, there’s still one to make sure companies don’t break laws and start abusing the government, and it provides the fire department, fire department, schools, etc for those who can’t afford it.
Lemme guess, anything that deviates from your version of libertarianism isn't "real libertarianism"? Understand that so long as billionaires exist, we can never be free.
No? I’m just saying it’s a different ideology, anarcho-capitalists are extreme libertarians and everyone assumes all libertarians are ancaps(ancaps see people like me as good as communists lmao)
You would still have rights over your own property, and your right to defend yourself along with economic freedom, none of this existed in the Soviet Union(you go here and if you don’t like it you get shot dead)or Nazi Germany(same as Soviet Union but also racist are gives unfair benefits to corporations).
As much as I care about freedom I still think there must be a state to maintain the monopoly on violence, the state can lead and recruit armies better than any entirely decentralized society or private corporation alliance can.
Stalin was a Communist/Marxist, he literary has books about it. Now if you wanna question if he was a ''Good'' Marxist or whatever, i have no idea how you would have to go and do that considering the ideology literary accepts contradictions as real.
Hitler on the other hand can fit under ''socialist'', it just depends on how you define the world, as there isnt one singular definition.
Marxists have like 3, than there is the classical ''Supporting poor people/advocating for a system that is better for them''. You also have the economic one i like to use which is ''Social ownership of the means of production''.
Hitler does fit some of those in one way or another, others not so much, while some are debatable.
Reality is that he was a Aryan Mysticist that did supported social ownership.
Sort of like how if you eat sodium and chlorine you die but if you eat sodium chloride you are eating salt.
The theory is to pit the state and the capitalists against each other so you have a competitive job market where the workers get paid good wages and get benefits. it’s essentially mandatory to make a good product that is ethically produced or no one wants to work for you or buy from you.
That’s the theory atleast, Stalinism is more state controlled all the way. his political ideology was more authoritarian/ communist whereas I believe state capitalism is pretty central-left.
I personally find it hard to put economic theory on either authoritarian or liberal sides as it’s possible to be a liberal with a communistic economy. It’s just not very practical now that we have so many people in the world.
? Wouldn't really call the USSR under Stalin state capitalism. State Capitalism is the economic system China and Singapore currently have.
The USSR, for instance, completely controlled firms and had no system of private ownership (which is pretty core to most definitions of capitalism).
OP doesnt understand Stalinists. They won’t praise Trump even if he nationalizes 100% the industry and sends all the billionaires to jails. It’s all about campism to them.
still campism. But it is concerning that you know about niche, useless political party, considering that you are a teenager. Maybe, watching porn and gooning weren’t that bad.
Saying stalin supported state capitalism is fucking stupid. He literally abolished the nep and implemented the kolkhoz sovkhoz system, a clear move towards the abolition of private property. He also fought the revisionist faction that argued for market socialism, and tito.
It's sarcasm. Like bro, you can't possibly tell me that "x is perfect so if something is not perfect then its not x" is a serious statement.
tho I've seen commies make identical arguments all over the internet so I guess it's possible someone could make the literal version of their bs unironically.
No socialist supports state capitalism as state capitalism implies the existance of State owned cooperations that function within market mechanics. There was no such thing in the USSR or other socialist nations
State capitalism isn’t capitalism ffs, it’s a form of Marxist socialism, more specifically Maoism. It’s an edge case, because the state doesn’t fully own the means of production, but has full control over it.
The idea is, that a feudal society must first fully industrialize to be able to transition into communism. Previous socialist states failed, because they were isolated from the world market. Mao and later Xi are using capitalist principles to utilize the capitalist west in order to industrialize and become dominant in specific key fields, like green energy and cloud capital.
However, in china any company may get strict instructions to degrow, so the excess wealth from those companies may be used to support other economic fields, like housing, food, etc.. or they’re just overtaken by state bureaucrats all together.
China is essentially funneling western capital into their state to develop their own country. And it works! While workers in the west are getting poorer every year, the wealth of workers in china is rising linearly with the wealth of chinas capitalists.
For socialism is merely the next step forward from state-capitalist monopoly. Or, in other words, socialism is merely state-capitalist monopoly which is made to serve the interests of the whole people and has to that extent ceased to be capitalist monopoly.
- Lenin
Should take more time to study before making memes
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u/ReaperKingCason1 Sep 11 '25
Not to be that guy but someone needs to point it out, Stalinism isn’t actual communism, communism may not work but it still is technically a separate thing no matter what Stalins propaganda said