this post was submitted on 20 Oct 2023
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There's a reason people on the left who actually bother actually learning a bit of history become Marxists.
There is only so much that revolutions could do though. Attacking police and authorities because they attacked you for having peaceful protest? That's reasonable, it is self-defence. But looting businesses and attacking properties? No. People love the French revolution and abolishing a corrupt regime, but not its subsequent Terror by the revolutionaries.
Not sure what point you're trying to make here to be honest. Nobody is talking about justifying random violence here.
Edit: after further, conversation. The person I replied turned out to be a communist of whatever type to be turning a blind eye to communist atrocities.
Edit2: The high level of sophistry, deliberate lying, the constant shifting of goal post and gaslighting indicates egomaniacal and psychopathic tendencies. Specimen nonetheless exhibit high level of intelligence, yet vapid statements, which reinforces hypothesis. The interlocutor also deliberately and selectively avoid questions being addressed and performs whataboutism to hide issues brought up. The person constantly creates non-sequitur points such as "So, if the person is trying to make the argument that communism is the reason atrocities happen, then the burden is on them to explain why they also happen under capitalism." Premise A is the position communism causing atrocities, which does not follow Premise B which is demanding to explain why atrocities happen under capitalism, in order to explain why Premise A happens. The circular logic is standard practice among trolls and bad faith arguers. Moreover, did the person just admit that he/she is okay with the killing under communism because capitalism does it too?
~~At least you're not one of those leftists.~~ The Marxist-Leninists always advocate for violent revolution simply because of slight inefficiencies. They blame everything as fault of capitalism. I remember at the height of the pandemic, there is the famous news of long line of cars queuing in the motorway in Texas for shopping. A guy (turned out to be a forum moderator) blamed it on capitalism. I pointed out it is straight up lie when it's clear that it is the fault of the pandemic messing up the supply chain. No one could have foreseen the pandemic and its effects. The guy proceeded to ban me for pointing out the obvious lie.
Leftist know that if violence is to be used, it must be targeted at specific people not random. As for the pandemic messing up the supply chains, the only reason international supply chains exist is because someone can make more money shipping pineapples to china to exploit the workers there and then ship them back to the US to sell for a 250% markup. If providing pineapples to people were the end goal a lot of supply chains would be much shorter and more robust.
Good point. But at the same time, reality dictates that only certain countries could export such and such because of climate and geography. You mentioned pineapples, they could only be produced in tropical countries because that's where they could only grow. Of course, that will have to undergo an expansive supply chain. Oil is also only in certain parts of the world. These things will have to travel across the world.
You're not wrong about worker exploitation. But unfortunately, many governments of third world countries actually negotiated for Western businesses to set up shop with them to provide jobs for their own population. They offer cheap services in exchange for high capital and return on investment. However, as these countries become richer, they are also increasing their demand for higher wages and better treatment. Foreign companies then would relocate to another country to continue the cycle, until they run out of countries for cheap labour. That's why companies would love AI and robots to develop more, so they don't have to pay for expensive humans.
No actual Marxist-Leninists say anything of the sort.
You'd be surprised.
No, I don't think I would. And if you learn a bit about Marxism-Leninism you'd see that either people you talked to didn't understand what they were talking bout, or you yourself didn't understand what they were telling you. ML theory is pretty clear on why revolutions happen, and how to conduct revolutions properly.
Well, it's not like people don't have different interpretations of things. There is a reason why there are so many violent far left. The Red Army faction, Indian and Filipino communists and Bolsheviks comes to mind, all of whom profess to be Marxist-Leninists.
Communists accept that violence is often a valid and necessary form of resistance. For example, there is absolutely nothing wrong with the way Bolsheviks used violence. However, what you said above is just pure nonsense rooted in your superficial understanding of the subject.
Tell that to practical realities lived under the Marxist-Leninist authorities.
The way I see it, ideology is like religion. More often than not, theory and practice do not align. It is especially the case with communism. And look, I will be blunt, you're committing "No true Scotsman" fallacy. You're right in theory, but again, the practical reality says otherwise. You claim there are no true communists or Marxist-Leninists who would advocate for wanton violence, but the reality is that there plenty of examples. The Bolsheviks arrested farmers who are apparently too rich. But it is an excuse for collectivisation of farms under state control. Marx also did not believe in the existence of state (he thought it should be a transitional entity towards collective ownership of production under classless structure). And yet, no state who profess to be communists, or its variation, ever relinquished power.
Having grown up in USSR, I think I understand the practical realities of Marxist-Leninist authority a hell of a lot better than you. I implore you to spend he time actually learn about the subject you're attempting to debate here because all you're doing is just making straw man arguments out of ignorance. You also evidently have no understanding of what Marx actually said.
Right, so you are a communist. I should not be surprised then.
Sounds like you are surprised when confronted with what somebody who actually lived in a communist country tells you about it. I guess I shouldn't be surprised that you think you know more about communism than people who actually experienced it though. That's very American of you.
Very arrogant and presumptuous of you think I'm an American.
If you are what you claim you are, what can you say about gulags and the purges in the Soviet Union?
US has a higher prison population today than USSR did even under Stalin. So, if gulags are bad, then clearly what we see under capitalism is even worse. Meanwhile, not sure what specifically you need to be told about the purges. All revolutions are messy, and require purging the regressive elements.
What's really telling is that people like you always have to reach back to the days right after the revolution to find something to complain about ignoring all the decades of how USSR developed after. You've just memorized a handful of tropes and you regurgitate them thinking that you're making some intelligible points here.
The purges happened years after the Bolsheviks gained power. The gulags continued until the fall of the Soviet Union.
So, what would you say about hundreds and thousands of people arrested for simply making a joke, owning a farm, being captured soldiers who escaped from German captivity, making mistakes on a job, the music apparently isn't working class enough. What do you make of these accounts?
Gulags were abolished in 1960s https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gulag
Maybe if you spent more time educating yourself then you wouldn't keep making a clown of yourself in public.
Gulag, labour camps. They're still prison camps in different name as per the same article you cited: "The Gulag institution was closed by the MVD order No 020 of January 25, 1960 but forced labor colonies for political and criminal prisoners continued to exist. Political prisoners continued to be kept in one of the most famous camps Perm-36 until 1987 when it was closed."
You still haven't addressed the accounts of those imprisoned. What do you make of those who were arrested? Do you approve or disapprove of the arrests, before and after Stalin's rule?
Calling Russia "a communist country" 😂
I never said Russia today was a communist country. I grew up in USSR before it dissolved.
Even more hilarious!
The only thing that's hilarious here is watching western dimwits give their takes on communism. It's like watching a squirrel give a treatise on quantum mechanics.
Just because you may have read Marx doesn't mean you're a communist
just because you made a straw man doesn't mean you're clever
Those are maoists and also do you dislike them?
Maoism is derived from Marxist-Leninism.
Okay and marxism comes from classical economics
I don't know what you're having but I won't be having it. Classical economics is the original capitalism. Marx rejected and critiqued it.