Communism
(→Communism in practice) |
(jumping in) |
||
| Line 1: | Line 1: | ||
| − | [[Image:HammerSickle.png|thumb|Symbol of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, which used to be a "Communist" state]]'''Communism''' is a | + | [[Image:HammerSickle.png|thumb|Symbol of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, which used to be a "Communist" state]]'''Communism''' is a [[leftism|leftist]] ideology of people who think that the ('''Warning: forbidden phrase ahead''') "means of production" should be owned and controlled collectively, or by the state, and that income should be shared equally amongst all citizens of the state. Communists are bad, very bad or at least, misguided. You may now commence your three minutes of hate. |
*[[fun:Minute of hate #1|Minute 1]] | *[[fun:Minute of hate #1|Minute 1]] | ||
Revision as of 18:59, 30 August 2008
Communism is a leftist ideology of people who think that the (Warning: forbidden phrase ahead) "means of production" should be owned and controlled collectively, or by the state, and that income should be shared equally amongst all citizens of the state. Communists are bad, very bad or at least, misguided. You may now commence your three minutes of hate.Contents |
Communism and atheism
Contrary to popular belief, not all atheists are communists, and not all communists are atheists. Communists and atheists are, however, allied in a vast conspiracy to sodomize the Christian youth of America.
What Communism actually is
Be careful reading this, because just the simple fact of knowing what actual communism is is treason in the United States of America. And "godlessness" is really only a very small part of it.
First, we must mention Karl Marx and the idea that human society develops in a dialectic fashion in reaction, starting with one system, swinging to its polar opposite, and then to a new form in the middle. To simplify matters somewhat, Marx saw Communism as the system that would develop when, having been freed from feudalism, then crushed by the well-intentioned concept of laissez-faire capitalism (which also seemed like a good idea at the time), the West would eventually develop a socialist system that would evolve into a sort of collectivist anarchy; the Communist Manifesto[1] was his statement of purpose. Vladmir Lenin, leading the Russian Revolution, took that idea to heart (even though Marx hadn't thought too highly of the Russians, since they were barely out of a feudal culture and had not developed the kind of industrial base that western Europe had) and declared open class warfare on the rich and even the middle class, in an attempt to create a workers' paradise. Lenin jumped the gun by leading a communist revolution with a small group of intellectuals without waiting for a significant working class to develop, trying to jump start a communist state by skipping an entire step in the process Marx had described. This would become know as Leninism, a sort of backwards Marxism, in which a small group of enlightened leaders took over the state first, and industry and a large working class were developed afterwards. In Leninism, the initial leaders of the revolution were to be caretakers of the communist state until the workers caught up and society could be transformed into the "workers' paradise."
It is true that Lenin's ideas (especially applying planned economy principles to agriculture) didn't really work, but though some reforms were suggested, Lenin died before they could be properly implemented, and Stalin took over and converted a somewhat brutal, bumblingly experimental socialist state into an extremely brutal and repressive autocracy, ruling by fear and paying only lip service to the thoughts of Marx and Lenin. So not only was the great Soviet experiment not working, Stalin stepped in and insured it never would, which was more than enough to carry the crazy red-baiters of the 1920s into the 50s with McCarthyism, throwing the adjective "godless"[2] in just to give it a bit more emotional sting.
Atheism in Communism comes from Marx's idea that religion is "the opium of the people", a control mechanism used to keep people from objecting to the system (an idea shared by many non-Commie liberals, including some religious ones). Though many Communist countries were and are officially atheistic, some have tolerated religion (though often inconsistently, sometimes alternating tolerance with persecution). The Soviet system wavered on the issue; the Chinese system tolerates religion as long as it can be officially controlled by the government; the most repressive regimes, such as Hoxha's Albania, and North Korea, tolerate no religion at all except such personality and political dogma as might be promoted/evangelized by state propaganda. (Ironically, nationalism, every bit as much an opiate as religion, has always been widely practiced by virtually all governments.)
Communism in practice
Communism, in the words of its founders Marx and Engels, is "scientific socialism". Since there was no actual science involved in the development of Marxist ideas, in the sense of the use of the scientific method and other accepted scientific practices, Communism could certainly be categorized as a pseudoscience. Marx's writings and those of many other significant Communist theorists, from Daniel De Leon to Bob Avakian to the North Korean government, tend to rely on sloganeering and unreferenced assertions in place of logical, carefully reasoned arguments,[3] and ad hominem responses to critics in place of real debate. Communist participation in broader coalitions, such as labor unions and the antiwar/peace movement, has also historically been along those lines: They often show a complete unwillingness to compromise with others in the coalition and disrespect for everyone around them except their own party members. They have often refused to compromise because they are convinced they are right and their particular party has The Truth on everything. This attitude can and has turned deadly, for example during the Spanish Civil War when the Communists, on orders from Stalin, began executing their own social-democratic, liberal, and anarchist allies.
While it may be debated whether any truly communist government has ever existed, those that have claimed to be communist have been noted for their freedoms. Most notable amongst these has been the freedom from deciding who to vote for that most of their populations have enjoyed. In the 21st century, the few states that officially call themselves Communist don't strictly conform to the definition; China is sort of collectivist-capitalist, North Korea is purely a personality cult devoted to Kim Il-Sung, Cuba is more or less Stalinist-lite, and Vietnam is more or less China-lite. Fear of communism, however, continues to be a major cause of right-wing insomnia, even well over a decade and a half after the fall of the Berlin Wall and the collapse of the Soviet Union. Marxist historical theory is fairly common in academia, but does not necessarily go hand in hand with Communist sympathies.
Conservapedia on Communism
They don't even begin to tell you what it is until they're finished telling you how bad it was (see the parody at the beginning of this article). Shows how much they really care about accuracy...
See also
- Freedom -- not inherently contradictory to communism, unless you take the position that ownership (including ownership of oneself) is the basis for freedom, but it seldom seems to be present in any great amount in communist governments either.
- John Birch Society -- the United States' most prominent anti-Communist organization. (They didn't get the memo.) A common figure of fun, even back then.
References and notes
- ↑ The Communist Manifesto at Project Gutenberg
- ↑ Around this time, the United States adopted the motto "In god we Trust" to differentiate themselves from their nemesistical superpower and empire.
- ↑ Really the closest Marx got to a reasoned argument was his invocation of the Hegelian dialectic; the significant flaws in his reasoning probably stemmed from the fact that he jumped to conclusions about the applicability of the dialectic to political history.
