Communism
Communism
Can anyone succinctly explain communism? Everything I've read in the past said that the state owns the means of production and in practice (in real life) that seems to be the reality. However I encountered a random idiot on the Internet that claimed in communism, there is no state and it is a stateless society. I immediately rejected this idea because it was counter to what I knew about communism irl. In searching using these keywords, I came across the ideas that in communism, it does strive to be a stateless society. So which one is it? If it's supposed to be a stateless society, why are all real-life forms of communism authoritarian in nature?
The confusion is between communism as an economic system and communism (more properly, Marxism-Leninism) as a political system.
Economically communism is a classless, stateless, society.
Most Marxist-Leninist states take the position that transitioning to that instantly is impossible, and you need to build the material conditions for it by transitioning through capitalism (be that state capitalism or some other form) to socialism to communism. The Communist Party of China for instance has a goal of achieving socialism by 2050.
That's a very simplified version anyway, and some (Trotskyists mostly) disagree that a transition period is necessary.
I see. So there is supposed to be an authoritarian state in the transitionary period, is what you are saying?
Interesting, I was under the impression the real life forms had just failed; one group got into power and just said "naw" and then stayed in that authoritarian 'state.'
Most attempts at communism so far have been from single party governments. Those trend quite quickly into authoritarianism regardless of the intent (you might get lucky with a long lived strong man with a deep ethical drive - aka Lenin) but chances are your single party will be coopted by an asshole.
Every time we've tried a communist government at a large scale we've really horribly failed but it has worked at smaller scales. It may be impossible beyond a limit like Dunbar's number but I think it's worth trying a few more times (especially if we can get the US to stop trying to constantly sabatoge it).
Your impression is basically the Trotskyist view.
Stalin himself answered your question in an interview with an American reporter some time ago.
Yes , you are right, we have not yet built communist society. It is not so easy to build such a society. You are probably aware of the difference between socialist society and communist society. In socialist society certain inequalities in property still exist. But in socialist society there is no longer unemployment, no exploitation, no oppression of nationalities. In socialist society everyone is obliged to work, although he does not, in return for his labour receive according to his requirements, but according to the quantity and quality of the work he has performed. That is why wages, and, moreover, unequal, differentiated wages, still exist. Only when we have succeeded in creating a system under which, in return for their labour, people will receive from society, not according to the quantity and quality of the labour they perform, but according to their requirements, will it be possible to say that we have built communist society.
You say that in order t o build our socialist society we sacrificed personal liberty and suffered privation.
Your question suggests that socialist society denies personal liberty. That is not true. Of course, in order to build something new one must economize, accumulate resources, reduce one's consumption for a time and borrow from others. If one wants to build a house one saves up money, cuts down consumption for a time, otherwise the house would never be built.
How much more true is this when it is a matter of building a new human society? We had to cut down consumption somewhat for a time, collect the necessary resources and exert great effort. This is exactly what we did and we built a socialist society.
But we did not build this society in order to restrict personal liberty but in order that the human individual may feel really free. We built it for the sake of real personal liberty, liberty without quotation marks. It is difficult for me to imagine what "personal liberty" is enjoyed by an unemployed person, who goes about hungry, and cannot find employment.
Real liberty can exist only where exploitation has been abolished, where there is no oppression of some by others, where there is no unemployment and poverty, where a man is not haunted by the fear of being tomorrow deprived of work, of home and of bread. Only in such a society is real, and not paper, personal and every other liberty possible.
https://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/stalin/works/1936/03/01.htm
There are a few key misconceptions here.
MLs do not take the stance that you need to go through "State Capitalism." The State playing a role in Markets a la the NEP is still considered a Socialist state even if production isn't socialized, but this isn't 100% necessary though it is beneficial in underdeveloped sectors.
Secondly, Communism for Marxists looks like full Public Ownership and Central Planning in a worldwide republic. The State for Marx was the aspect of society that enforced class distinctions, so upon reaching full Public Ownership, even with a government, there is no "State" in the Marxist convention. Per Engels:
The first act in which the state really comes forward as the representative of the whole of society -- the taking possession of the means of production in the name of society -- is at the same time its last independent act as a state. The interference of the state power in social relations becomes superfluous in one sphere after another, and then dies away of itself. The government of persons is replaced by the administration of things and the direction of the processes of production. The state is not "abolished", it withers away. It is by this that one must evaluate the phrase "a free people's state" with respect both to its temporary agitational justification and to its ultimate scientific inadequacy, and it is by this that we must also evaluate the demand of the so-called anarchists that the state should be abolished overnight.
Finally, the CPC considers China to be Socialist already. The 2050 metric is to be a "great, developed Socialist nation." The CPC subscribes to the stageist theory of Socialism whereby each phase in Socialism has unique characteristics, not that they are not yet Socialist.
Motherfuckers really will downvote a non-stupid question on !nostupidquestions
It's not whether it's stupid or not, but that it's actively belligerent and exposes the antagonism of OP against learning new things. Awful example to set for the community
I think asking this question on a Lemmy.world community is a bit of a mistake. If you want an answer from Marxists, it would be better to ask it on an instance with more Marxists. As a consequence, there are numerous errors people have been making here that are a consequence of not really engaging with Marxist theory outside of Wikipedia definitions, the oversimplification of which has led to drastic errors in conclusions, the blind leading the blind.
Communism, for Marxists, would look like a Worldwide Republic with full Public Ownership and Central Planning. The issue you are runnung into is Marxist definition of the State. For Marxists, the State is an instrument of Class oppression. When you eliminate Classes, you so eliminate the State. Administration, planning, legal networks, etc would still exist without what Marx considered a "State" to be. Moreover, this is the fundamental difference between what Marxists want and what Anarchists want. From Engels, in Socialism: Utopian and Scientific:
The first act in which the state really comes forward as the representative of the whole of society -- the taking possession of the means of production in the name of society -- is at the same time its last independent act as a state. The interference of the state power in social relations becomes superfluous in one sphere after another, and then dies away of itself. The government of persons is replaced by the administration of things and the direction of the processes of production. The state is not "abolished", it withers away. It is by this that one must evaluate the phrase "a free people's state" with respect both to its temporary agitational justification and to its ultimate scientific inadequacy, and it is by this that we must also evaluate the demand of the so-called anarchists that the state should be abolished overnight.
The reason it isn't instantaneous is because Marx and Engels believed Private Property could only truly be folded into the Public Sector once it had developed enough to be easily planned, and this happens at different rates across different industries, and to different degrees. The revolutionary aspect is still necessary and quite short-term, but once the Proletariat has siezed control the productive forces must be developed within the constraints of physical reality, ie you can't will the system or decree it into being fully publicly owned and centrally planned. It's a gradual process, but revolution is required up front because without it the Bourgeoisie maintain political power, and they need that power wrested from them before Socialism can even begin.
I highly recommend checking out my Introductory Marxist Reading List if you want to learn more, but feel free to ask any questions!
Seeing around this thread you clearly know your stuff. So it feels appropriate to reply to you with questions I have,
Somewhere in this thread one you thing you mentioned was the state/administration would have its exploitative elements removed and would just become an administrative and directive organization, slowly withering away. To me this feels contradictory, the same process that allow an organization to direct resources are surely the same process that allow an organization to exploit people?
I've probably failed to word that correctly, so to illustrate what I mean, the guy who control who gets what, can just say "do what I want or I'll deny you blah", now what the administrator wants can of course be influenced by money, like today's politicians, but I'm sure there are plenty of other things people want and could seek to gain - or even just the joy of controlling people.
I suppose you can have checks, but that feels like a band aid if you accept what I said early, the institution in power is inherently able to exploit people - all checks have done is make it more difficult.
To me this is not a consequence of the state/administration being exploitative, rather a consequence of the state having authority to control resource flow at all.
I always camped in the areas of anarchist leftism, but I'm interested to see what you think and I'm not well read enough to comment properly so I imagine there's a lot of mistakes in this reply so sorry in advance
I have more questions, but this is quite long already so I'll leave it here
No problem, thanks for asking! 🙂
One thing I think you're misreading is the State withering away. What we commonly think of as the "State," ie the entire public sector, government, administration, etc is not the same as what Marx calls the State. For Marx, the State is the elements of Government that contribute to Class oppression.
Before we can continue, we need to know what a "class" even is to begin with. Elsewhere in this thread, people make reference to something like a "planner class," but for Marx, no such thing exists. Rather, Classes are social relations with respect to ownership of the Means of Production and interaction with it. "Plumbers" are not a class, just like "managers" are not a class. The reason this is important, is because a classless society is one that holds all of the Means of Production in Common. In other words, full Public Ownership.
Circling back to the State, how does it "wither away?" The answer is that the Proletarian state, one dominated by the Proletariat and not the Bourgeoisie, gradually wrests from the Bourgeoisie its Capital with respect to the degree that it has developed. A Socialist revolution would not turn everything into Public Property instantly, markets and Capitalists would remain until the industries they govern develop enough that Public Ownership becomes more efficient and markets stagnate, ie monopolist phases where competition has run dry.
Since this is a gradual process, imagine every bit of Private Property wrested chips away at the State. The second Private Property reaches 0% and Public Property reaches 100%, there are no longer any classes, and thus no class to oppress. The "State" disappears, leaving only government, administration, and more behind.
As for the structural makeup of the socialist government, it would be most likely made up of "rungs," a local rung, a regional rung with representatives from each local rung, a provincial, national, international, etc rung, as many as needed and as few as necessary for proper Central Planning. What you describe as people being able to just "take advantage" of that could happen, Communism isn't some utopia of perfection, but such a society is far more resiliant as well as resistant to this than Capitalism, and more importantly builds up over time in a realistic manner.
Does that answer your question? Feel free to read from the reading list I linked earlier, also linked on my profile!
For Marxists, the state is the institution that tries to resolve, with violence, the contradictions that are inherent within class society. So when class society no longer exists, then violence is no longer necessary, hence the state is no longer necessary, hence "withering away".
This isn't an all or nothing situation, just a theory. The laws of uneven and combined development indicate that this withering would happen in different ways at different rates. this process wouldn't even begin until the whole world has become some form of socialism, and the social relations governing society would be much progressed. Its hard to imagine how this would work compared to our current situation
If you want an answer from Marxists, it would be better to ask it on an instance with more Marxists.
Is there a listing somewhere where Lemmy instances are grouped by the sociopolitical ideologies of their members?
Not written out, as far as I'm aware. Lemmy.ml is more broadly federated than Lemmy.world, however, so it can cast a wider net. Perhaps asking on c/socialism or c/communism would be a good bet for OP. Per your question, though, it really is just found out either by checking each instance or feeling it out if it isn't explicitly stated.
Maybe you can clarify for me, as I'm not knowlegeble in Marxism: When the state withers away, what is the central organisation called, that manages the means of production? I thought that would also be called functions of a state. Thanks
Engels calls it "the Administration of Things," I'd call it government. Really, the heart of the matter is that many people think Marx was advocating for decentralization, which does not logically follow from the rest of Marxism advocating for central planning and whatnot, leading to a weird misconception of a lot of centralization and somehow dissolving, which is evidently false.
We can think of it as a "State" remaining as long as we recontextualize what that means with respect to Marxism, the modern colloquial sense of a State would remain in an altered form is all.
Communism is the struggle for a moneyless, stateless, classless society.
There's no connection between a supposed ideology of communism, and authoritarianism. The "authoritarianism" arose as a result of material circumstances, not ideology. I've looked into the histories a lot and its very complicated. Not like you wouldn't understand it, just that it can't be reduced to a simple truism, cant be made succinct.
Let's just say that the capitalists who hoard all the wealth and do nothing to earn millions and billions, who own the media and for whose benefit the state represents, aren't too keen on movements that sometimes overthrow them. So it's in their interests to paint socialism and communism in as bad a light as possible.
There's no connection between a supposed ideology of communism, and authoritarianism. The "authoritarianism" arose as a result of material circumstances, not ideology.
Material conditions made me put the worker council leaders in front of a firing squad!
If you want to discuss the history of the Russian revolution, I saved but didn't post several paragraphs, but deleted them for the sake of brevity. Flattening the whole 100 years of Russian "socialist" history to highlight it's worst abuses is just as intellectually lazy as flattening it to only highlight the best parts of it. I'm not going to apologise for Kronstadt or anything that came after, but the civil war period was horrible. And had the Bolsheviks not taken power, Kornilov or Kerensky would have, and instituted far more brutal oppression; if not just tried to restore the Tzar.
The organizing principles of the Bolsheviks and RSDLP should absolutely be studied leading up to Oct 1917, as well as Rosa Luxemburg, and Anton Pannekoek's criticisms of Lenin.
But saying "firing squad" doesnt prove that communism leads to authoritarianism, although it references a time in history that was very brutal and oppressive. However, Its not as good of a criticism as you are capable of. I'm used to having discussions with people who probably aren't critical enough of the Bolsheviks, so its refreshing to hear from you, in a way.
The end-goal is a stateless society. But you cannot achieve it if all other people are living in states, you need something that is of similar power. Hence it's a necessary step towards the end-goal which can only happen once everyone (or at least a significant portion of the world) is a communist. And that happens right after a unicorn rides across the sky while shooting rainbow and ice cream out of its ass.
As to why all communism is authoritarian, everyone who goes into politics is a authoritarian or an idealist. So the way it usually goes is either the authoritarian comes and explains to everyone that they're communist, or the idealist convinces everyone of the idea and then his colleagues slowly swap them out for the authoritarian, because they're usually the one actually capable of running a country.
In other words, to have a successful ideal communism everyone on Lemmy has a hard-on for, you need an unsevered chain of idealist leaders who are also capable of running a country. To achieve the authoritarian version of communism, you need only one authoritarian leader anywhere in the chain. I think everyone can guess which one's easier and more likely.
In conclusion, communism can never exist on a large scale as long as people are in power. The only possibility of communism I can see is far in the future when we have true AI (not the current bullshit machines) which rules over us without any possibility of humans altering its decisions. Not sure how likely that is, but at least it's theoretically achievable.
The notion of "state" differs wildly across people, so that probably adds to the confusion.
The core concept is that ownership of a thing belongs to the people of the thing. This is where it clashes with feudalism and capitalism, where ownership of e.g. a farm is not held by the farm workers.
The organizational unit is "group of people cooperating", or a "commune". This can be small, like a hippie farm, or it can be big - a traditional state.
A democratic state can be communist if it forbids private ownership of common resources. I.e. your house is your house and your car is your car but some rich fuck can't decide to build a fence around the local hiking trail.
An authoritarian state may technically be communist if it is strongly democratic. That is theoretical. The ones currently claiming communism are dictatorships.
The usual rhetoric is that you shouldn't look at the dozens of examples, and their consequences (1). Rather focus on the theory, and agree that that theory is perfect. And also that anything else is bad. Unless it's an attempt at being communist, then the bad things aren't bad. Unless they are undeniably bad, but in that case, it isn't real communism.
Well this was kinda my opinion going in, so I wanted a different perspective lol.
What they're describing is a so-called tankie who claims that they're communist but instead really they're just authoritarians who need to feel a little less shitty about themselves so they pretend they do it for the good of all people.
Couple considerations: what is a nation to do when it constantly is on the verge of civil war, hasnt had breathing room to get its feet under it after a political revolution and is beset by brand new, world power level enemies doing everything they can to make sure your new nation fails?
Followup: when has this not been the case for a new communist nation? How many coups has the US backed? How many times did we try to assassinate Castro? Vietnam?
Finally: what does it look like when none of the above is true?
We tend to think of nations in a vacuum, but they exist along side each other and they have people like us inside them. Stupid, greedy, lying, shitbags that are full of empathy, love and curiousity, just like us. That makes them messy by definition, but its easy to forget.
It looks like a European welfare state, because instead of upending the system and ending up in an authoritarian nightmare, people are compromising with each other.
Popular prosperity is a function of power being reliant on the approval of the masses, and thus will not be achieved in any meaningful way under an authoritarian regime.
Im not disagreeing here. That is one way to interpret "how communism with no capitalist boot on your neck?" Note though, those states dont self identify as communist or really even socialist in most cases, which leads to muddy waters, and does no favors for socialism as a political system... As an economic system its arguable, but not relevant.
I am far from making an argument for auth; it is however important to point out the context in which the most famous example of authy socialism are taken from. I feel that being aware of the strategy of the propagandabeing consumed is important.
No answers in this reply, only questions.
No answers in this reply, just stating that the sky is blue except when its not.
Okay, so the first thing to recognise is that terminology in left wing theory can be super confusing and the same words can be used to mean different things at different times or in different places, or sometimes in the same place at the same time.
Communism however in modern usage is fairly straightforward as it is used almost exclusively as it is defined in conventional Marxist doctrine(and yes there are many branches of Marxism).
That said big C Communism means a state of being that is achieved as the end point of societal evolution where there is no state, the means of production is controlled by the community and the needs of all are met.
In conventional Marxist thought the way of achieving this is through a transitional stage of socialism where the means of production is controlled by a "Vanguard" state. Many states in history have claimed to be communist in ideology(they are working towards this stateless utopia) but none have claimed to have achieved communism, only to be in the process of transitioning to it.
To all the leftist theory heads out there, don't at me, I know this is a huge oversimplification, it is deliberate for someone who is obviously new to this.
I think a lot of the disagreement here stems from the current circumstances vs the ideal. Or reality vs expectations, if you will.
IDEALLY there wouldn't be a state. But in practice there must be an organizing body. Sure, the workers can own and control everything themselves, but imagine how hard it must be to organize this ad-hoc for and with everyone. So from a managerial perspective, the state still has a function.
Sidenote: IDEALLY, the society would be without money as well, at least according to Lenin, but he quickly learned that this too presented practical problems to the point where it was simply easier to keep money around.
Note, I'm not a communist, I am just roughly explaining communism as I understand it in the context of the question, as neutrally as I can.
EDIT: Also see that other persons comment about Vanguardism, as that is also an important aspect of difference between the ideal and the practical.
You're a bit confused about the Marxist notion of the State, understandably if you aren't a Marxist. For Marx, the state is the aspect of government that entrenches and enforces class distinctions, ergo once all property is public there are no classes, and thus no state, despite a government remaining. Per Engels:
The first act in which the state really comes forward as the representative of the whole of society – the taking possession of the means of production in the name of society – is at the same time its last independent act as a state. The interference of the state power in social relations becomes superfluous in one sphere after another, and then dies away of itself. The government of persons is replaced by the administration of things and the direction of the processes of production. The state is not “abolished”, it withers away. It is by this that one must evaluate the phrase “a free people’s state” with respect both to its temporary agitational justification and to its ultimate scientific inadequacy, and it is by this that we must also evaluate the demand of the so-called anarchists that the state should be abolished overnight.
Additionally, money can only be abolished once an economy has fully socialized, at no point in the USSR's history was that feasible. They even tried to move to a labor voucher system, but lacked the computerized means to make it truly practical.
That doesn't answer my question unfortunately. In fact kinda muddies the water. Wikipedia says that it strives to be stateless, but how does that contend with the real life versions of communism that most certainly have a state?
what you refer to as
real life versions of communisms are in fact attempts to establish communism by communist parties within their respective nation states. communism has bever been reached - and none of these parties in power ever said that they had.
the way you use the word (associating USSR, China, Cuba, N Korea with communism) is the result of cold war propaganda. more accurate terminology for these (horrible!) dictatorships would be authoritarian regime with state-monopolized capitalist economy.
all summarized communism is an ideal economy where each gives what they can and gets what they nees, where necessity is at the core and not the accumulation of wealth.
I think the second paragraph talks a bit about this. It's not really about the exact form of government. But about society and classes. So you're both subject to exactly that. There is no agreement how communism can be achieved. I'd say without anyone keeping an eye out and enforcing it, it's going to degrade into something else. But I can see how different groups oft people could do that, by different means. At least theoretically.
Describing economic and political systems is tough because people have different interpretations of them and they can all be correct. Denmark and the US are both capitalist but their systems are incredibly different.
The simplest description that applies to all forms of communism but not to systems that aren't communist, is that the means of production (typically defined as land and capital) are state owned (with the intention that their use is decided democratically by the public).
Other descriptions could also apply but they're also not required. Like how a watch is still a watch whether or not it has a hand to indicate seconds.
why are all real-life forms of communism authoritarian in nature?
most likely due to "power syndrome"
One of those is the ideal version that Marx described as the ultimate goal and that can never be made by humans anyway because humans just don't behave like that. The other one is what you actually get if you follow the Marx Manifesto and his idea of an "intermediate state" that could bring you to the end goal. (And if you go compare it with plain OG Fascism, both look way too much alike.)
There are other things called "communism", both the word and the concept are way older than Marx. There are even ideas that begun in that umbrella but we don't actually group in any singular concept, and instead are "just the way things are" nowadays.
I recommend reading Blackshirts and Reds, Communism and Fascism have historically been entirely different and equating them is not really justified.
I'm not who you responded to, but they have a good point. The difference being who is favored and who is not. In fascism there are in groups and out groups. The real life forms we have today of communism follow that same rule. I think the distinction is who is being targeted. Try to speak out against the Russian government in Russia, it won't go well. The same thing would certainly happen in a fascist state. Pointing out the small differences between the two is akin to making the distinction between a pedophile and a hebephile. They are both authoritarian in nature.
Anyone wanting a deeper dive, check out the books and videos of Professor Richard D. Wolff.
Several communes in the us have evisted which look very socialist - they all died out as the children didn't share the parents ideals. (most died out as marx was publishing his theories - as such all had differences from what marx proposed)
I find with things like this everyone has a slightly different view. Its like if someone mentions socialism some folks will say its not really socialism unless its like full on communism but others look at socialism as the other end of a spectrum with socialism and how a country operates is somewhere on the line. Some people think anarchy means everyone does what they want and others view it as very local democratic communities with no central authority. I have encountered folks who view something like the term social contract to only be applicable to how one writer spoke about it as opposed to a general concept.
something that doesn't work, easy.