Talk:Communism/Archive 2

• Talk:Communism/Archive1

Stalinism

(moved by Jack 06:03, 13 Jan 2004 (UTC) from my talk for the benifit of all)

The last version is at least in better context. Stalinism by itself, i.e., not as a member of the "quadrille" has a totally different meaning. IMO one should not confuse an idealistic "communism" theory and the actual results of its implementation (even if one can prove the results are direct consequence of consistent application of the theory.) Maoism is another "implementation" of Communism, different from "Stalinism". What is more, "stalinism" was never theory. Good luck! Mikkalai 05:38, 13 Jan 2004 (UTC)

Stalinism perfectly sums up the POV problem on this page. You guys (I'm gonna put words in your mouths, for the sake of argument) dream about utopian communism, and like to think thats what this page is about. I, on the other hand, focus on the realities of Stalinism and Maoism. I think that dreamy utopia stuff is just a lie of propaganda to get you to surrender to totalitarianism, which IMO is nearly synonymous w REAL (what the west calls) Communism. I'm ok with mentioning the utopian stuff, but I am no way gonna let this article get rose tinted. While I am looking to place the truth here, the truth is ugly and wretched when it comes to what communism REALLY is. If I knew where an open-domain image of pol pots skull pyramids was, I'd put an image of that on here ASAP. Just to let you know ehere I'm coming from. (sorry, forgot to sign before, this is after the fact) Jack 00:46, 14 Jan 2004 (UTC)

Gee, I better keep my mouth shut :-) . I understand your concern. I know what stalinism was (almost) first-hand. But rose tint or not, I suggest you to read the Swastika article. The situation is the same: intended (and used in the past) and acquired meanings. Both deserve equal treatment: both the dream and the reality. The article should not be tinted neither rose not grayish: IMO it must consisit of four clearly separated pieces: rose (utopia), red(revolution), black (typical result).

Also, why do you think Pol Pot was communist? Did he tell you so? And you believed him? Do you happen to know that Bokassa the cannibal before he proclaimed himself emperor was building socialism, according to his solemn oaths to the Soviet Union? Not to say about Hitler? The current article does not clearly explain why Pol Pot is communist and Hitler is not. Mikkalai 19:16, 13 Jan 2004 (UTC)

Pol Pot was communist in the western use of the word. He was supported by the Viet Cong, and acribed to marxist philosophy. Hitler on the other hand would have sent Marx away to the camp, along w his family (its quite likely he did have some of Marx's relations killed), and almost certainly had Marx's books burned. BTW, the people on the Nazism page feel pretty strongly that Hitler wasn't even socialist, so I imagine they'd rend their garments and gnash their teeth if I tried suggesting he was a communist (not to mention what neo-nazi's might do to me!). Jack 00:53, 14 Jan 2004 (UTC)

You perfectly illustrated my point: you say: Pol Pot "acribed to marxist philosophy", and hence you label him communist. But Hitler ascribed himself to socialism, Hitler was supported by Stalin until they clashed, but you do NOT want to list him as socialist. How do you judge? Mikkalai 02:36, 14 Jan 2004 (UTC)

Actually I spent months trying to have Hitler labled a socialist on nazism and socialism. Sam [Spade] 13:21, 12 Jun 2004 (UTC)

Shouldn't Communism be viewed as a response to the poverty and starvation of millions of peasants due to the autocracy?

Hitler

Actually I do consider Nazism a variation of Socialism. You can read my opinion on the subject at Talk:Nazism. Additionally I intend to write an article on Gregor Strasser on this very subject. He was a Nazi who differed from Hitler in his feelings towards the soviets, and in his focus on the workers, etc.. He was pretty clearly a racialist communist. The subtleties of Nazi politics are nearly always glossed over by rabid POV. Anyways, for the record, Nazism had a variety of Socialist elements, and yet had the distict economic advantage of a business friendly policy (which if you look into it, was perhaps the sharpest difference betwixt Strasser and Hitler) and a vastly superior prowess in propaganda, found in the racialism and embrace of traditional culture as well as other areas. There are many variations of Socialism, which in its broadest, most general sense is any system which provides for the welfare of its citzens before the welfare of its corperations ;).

BTW, IMO the Socialism article is a mess, and is actually factually innacurate. In comparison, this page is in much better shape. Anybody want to help me make it better? Jack 03:22, 14 Jan 2004 (UTC)

that's because the term itself is heavily overused. IMO the Socialism article should be one real big disambig page with a very small common denominator. Mikkalai 04:44, 15 Jan 2004 (UTC)

Yep. Problem is the Commmunists there seem to have a majority, and they don't want nasty nazi's allowed in the socialist club. Thing is, Socialism has rapidly become impossibly broad, and now accurately reflects almost every political system on earth. Even the USA has welfare, soc security, etc... Jack 05:07, 15 Jan 2004 (UTC)

Well no Jack, see the thing is that the Nazi's themselves don't want to be considered socialists repeating to us ad infinitum that they are 'national-socialists', a hyphenated word which is incorrect both in meaning and in language without the hyphen. In fact we found (and you can find in the socialism discussion pages)that only a certain type of particular American conservative or libertarian was fancy on calling nazis socialists. Go check it out. I suppose you would consider Keynes a socialist too? Capone 17:54, 22 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Communism isn't communist

"Communist country" is a Cold War term used by the political analysts of the west (i.e. the part of the world having a capitalist economy and following the political leadership of the United States). However, the "communist countries" of the 20th century were not actually communist and did not label themselves as such. The "socialist" countries were influenced by the regime of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. Common characteristics of all "socialist countries" include the leading position of a Marxist-type party in society and central planning of the economy.

Sounds like a rhetorical trick. I used to see this slogan on posters in Harvard Square: the Free World isn't free, and the Communist world isn't communist.

How do you define "free" and "communist"? If the only criterion for being "free" or "communist" is to declare yourself as such, then every totalitarian state in history was part of the "free world" - because they always said their people were free; just like the stalinists always said they were the great champions of democracy, human rights, and communism. You laugh at their claims about having democracy and human rights, and you are right to do so. Why, then, don't you also laugh at their claims about being communists?

If it doesn't look like a duck, doesn't walk like a duck and doesn't swim like a duck, then it probably isn't a duck - no matter what it claims.

-- Mihnea Tudoreanu 16:05, 27 Sep 2004 (UTC)

I thought we settled this a year or two ago. We had a nice article explaining that Communism (big C) referred to the political system in the real world, along with its associated policies on economics, etc. And communism was, amoung other things, a theoretical condition (or stage) of society envisioned by Marx to come aften socialism.

It's misleading to say that, for example, the Soviet Union, which had a "Communist Party" and was ruled by it, wasn't "Communist". It would only be accurate (and thus not misleading) if a writer clearly said something like:

Despite years of one-party rule by its Communist masters, the Soviet Union never achieved "communism" per se.

And what exactly makes them "communist" masters? The fact that they said so? That's not a very convincing argument. -- Mihnea Tudoreanu 16:05, 27 Sep 2004 (UTC)

But proponents of Communism are (at the risk of making a "personal remark") liars and murders. I know. I made a long, careful and detailed study.

[sarcasm] Really? You studied every single one of them? How fascinating. And where did you publish this extraordinary study of yours? [/sarcasm] -- Mihnea Tudoreanu 16:05, 27 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Anyway, the question is how to describe POV in the article. Maybe we should identify some "Mr. X" who makes any of the following points:

• (1) the term "Communist" is a Western invention
• (2) It's wrong to call Communist countries "Communist"
• (3) Countries labeled "Communist" by the West didn't consider themselves Communist.

It would certainly be wrong to state any of these points as fact, because that would give them Wikipedia endorsement. --Uncle Ed 17:43, 16 Jan 2004 (UTC)

• How about this, for starters:

The terms "Communist country" and "communist bloc" were introduced in the second half of the 20th century to denote the Socialist countries of the Soviet Empire. Although not precise, the term was accepted for a number of reasons:

• These countries were governed by parties of communist orientation
• They did have significant elements of the communist society, such as common ownership (actually, state ownership) of means of production (land, industry)
• The notion of Socialism as seen in these countries was not generally accepted by the rest of the world.

If none argues that the above are real facts, I'm going to put it into the article.Mikkalai 20:58, 22 Jan 2004 (UTC)

Although my comment is of course a bit late and the article has progressed a lot since you wrote the above, here are some general objections to your text:

1. Most socialists did not accept those countries as being "socialist", and, if we go by the original definition of socialism (which involves democracy), they weren't socialist. Their systems contained various elements of socialism (and communism), of course, but only in matters of economics. Their political systems did not fit socialism.
2. According to many communists, the ruling parties of those countries were not of communist orientation. This is evidenced by their behavior in practice.

-- Mihnea Tudoreanu 16:05, 27 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Geezus.

First off: Vicious anti-communists are by definition incapable of being objective about communism. We all know this, whether we admit it or not. Some of the statements here totally disqualify the people who post them AFAIC from having ANY input on Wikipedia on this subject.

Hmmm, would you also agree that vicious anti-capitalists are also by definition incapable of being objective about capitalism? TDC 22:21, Sep 26, 2004 (UTC)

Both of you need to define what exactly you mean by "vicious". -- Mihnea Tudoreanu 16:05, 27 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Gee... Didn't see that coming, hehe.

Vicious definitely needs to be defined alright -- but there's no "balance" or "mirror" situation here. However, I can also think of many anti-capitalist tirades I've read that had me cringe at the thought of being associated with the author...

But generally: communists are not only far more capable of writing on capitalism than pro-capitalists on communism; they're also by definition the best-qualified to do so. Marxism is, after all, scientific socialism -- which is de facto about a scientific description of capitalism too. Capitalist apologists are just... apologists.

Pazouzou 16:17, 28 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Scientific socialsim ?!? Please tell me that was a joke. Socialism has about as much scientific reasoning behind it as scientology. TDC 16:33, Sep 28, 2004 (UTC)

Well... it's pretty clear now ,if it wasn't previously, that you are one of those people whose presence here is -- how shall I put this? -- puzzling. Just why are you interested in the Communism Wikipedia article??

And don't tell me it's "to keep it honest" either.

Pazouzou 16:46, 28 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Um .......... I came here to keep it honest? Really, I have not contributed to this article at all, rather I am just a casual observer. I have always been fascinated in marxims and all of its nasty derivatives. To me it is the epitome of schizophrenic behavior. I am afraid that if some people have their way, this article will look like Angela Davis wrote it, and I sure as shit aint gonna have that. TDC 16:51, Sep 28, 2004 (UTC)

Neocons/libertarians/whatever like yourself have nothing useful to offer to this article, obviously. Your only intent seems to be the usual: to tie people up with non-sequitur emotionality and to confuse issues, so you get your way, thru attrition. However -- as is Wikipedia's intent -- this article will become more and more objective over time, in spite of your wishes. And an objective representation of communism is CLEARLY going to upset you. And I will enjoy that.

Pazouzou 17:08, 28 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Wow, it would seem that someone is a shade emotionaly involved inthis article. But I agree with you on one point this article will become better over time, and I will play a major role in that. Toodles. TDC 17:13, Sep 28, 2004 (UTC)

Second: No matter how objective communists or non-communists are here; no matter how much they bend over backwards to appease the anti-communists, it will never be enough. Clearly, if REAL objectivity is to be maintained, there is some point beyond which the objective people do not go, merely to avoid endless nasty posts by the politically unhinged.

Third: It is quite possible for communist (many of them) and non-communist (many of them) editors to actually BE objective here -- though from my cursory glance at what is actually up, there is some way to go yet before anything close to 'objectivity' is reached. For instance: while the article(s) on "Communism" do/es start off clearly delineating the difference between western propaganda usage vs. marxist usage, the one article I looked over falls right back into the U.S. Cold War usage all over the place. It seems that many of the western editors of Wikipedia really have serious difficulty overcoming years of anti-communist, anti-Thralled World indoctrination inculcated thru the U.S. education system.

FI: "Soviet Empire" is a ludicrous Reagan-era propaganda term which should be the first distortion to go, IMO. The term is unacceptable for usage in this context in an encyclopedia which makes claims of objectivity. A far better case can be made for U.S. empire for that matter -- internal or external -- but historically this has never been used. So why apply the term 'empire' to the Soviet union, which for historical reasons ONLY, inherited the Russian Empire? I could expand on this, but I think you get the idea.

Pazouzou 20:17, 26 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Critiques of Communism

This discuss page seems to have degenerated into a "Communism is good so phoohey to you" "Communism is bad" "You must look at Stalinism and Maoism" "No `Communism' refers to an ideal" etc. etc.

Perhaps the constructive way out is to summarize the attempts of other recognized authors to critique communism? George Orwell and Karl Popper spring to mind as two excellent and accessible critiques of "idealized communism".

Yeah! :D Jack 09:23, 19 Jan 2004 (UTC)

There are as many of these critiques as of critiques of the Bible. No matter how smart and witty they are, they all come from a very simple, basic error in premises: communism (in its "theoretical" meaning) is possible only either with limitless resources or with limited desires. Mikkalai 17:33, 23 Jan 2004 (UTC)

That is a brilliant point, Mikkalai. Jack 08:24, 2 Feb 2004 (UTC)

You touch precisely opon my complaint w communism: my limitless desires contrasted with my awareness of supply/demand :) Jack 08:38, 2 Feb 2004 (UTC)

There is also the small issue of my love for my own personal freedoms (speech, gun ownership, travel, not being repressed...) and the bad PR that Stalin, Pol Pot, Mao, Castro (pretty much every example of Communism I can think of...) have given. These critiques of Communism clearly deserve more mention in this article. Jack 08:41, 2 Feb 2004 (UTC)

And from the very beginning the problem was well understood and solutions were developed. They were being implemented in the USSR, although not successfully. First solution - redistribution of wealth. It's not a problem per se and it doesn't lead to inefficiency - bad central planning does. Second solution - increase industrial capability. The USSR was doing that very successfully, but ran into limits of central planning soon (with modern ERP systems it could have been as efficient as any MNC). Third - raise people who do not care that much about material posessions, but about creative work for the well-being of all. It is quite obvious, also, that by sharing things you can provide much better quality of life than if everyone must buy everything for himself. So the fourth solution was to develop a very good social infrastructure, including health, educaiton, entertainment, sport, etc. Paranoid 08:09, 11 Jun 2004 (UTC)

---

On Marx and Engels -- my understanding is that they didn't believe that communism -could- be a global movement, so much as that it -needed- to be.

• That was exactly their theory: since communism is stateless, it should be global. The idea of local communism is further development of Lenin. Whether Marx believed himself or not, do you have specific references in support? Mikkalai 17:53, 12 Feb 2004 (UTC)

Furthermore, not that a minority ruling class had controlled the means of production throughout all history, but rather that classes with control had gradually been merging and shrinking until we got to the two-class system which is already well-explained.

• IMO this issue is not for this article. Besides, two-class system is oversimplification. So please leave it for Social class article.Mikkalai 17:53, 12 Feb 2004 (UTC)

I thought I'd throw it out here for comments before making a change in order to head off a possible flame war. Comments? Rebrane 08:53, Feb 12, 2004 (UTC)

---

Text from Communism (religion): Communism is an idea, that although has existed for millenia in various forms, was first organized into a modern political ideaology by Karl Marx and Engels during the turbulent 19th century. In its essence, communism is the idea of communal sharing of all property and assets. True communism, as said by Marx, is achieved when all forms of government, management, and ownership of realty or resources is abolished, and mankind lives in a form of mutually agreed common authority over themselves, an ideal "benevolent" anarchy.

"To each according to his needs, from each according to his ability" was the slogan of the Soviet Union that summed up the essentials. Communism had been preached and propagated by many agitators and unionists during Europe's unstable transition to the modern era, and it was most often brutally suppressed and commonly outlawed. While there were some violent communist uprisings in Western Europe, only Russia had a major insurrection in which the government fell to the communist authorities.

The primary battle cry of the Communists was that the "Elitist" rich, the "town dwellers", were essentially slave masters holding the working poor in economic bondage, soaking up the fruits of their labors and exploiting them all the way. Such was the basis for Marx's famous slogan "Working men of the world unite, you have nothing to lose but your chains."

Communism is often linked to the term "Socialism", though they are not identical despite their similarities. Socialism is when the state commands high authority and is responsible for taking care of the needs of its citizens. Communism has no state leadership except for the mutually agreed authority over small communities. Taken literally, Communism means "Communal-ism", "Commune-ism". While the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics liked to dub itself a Communist society, it was realistically a Socialist society. Communism could be argued to be an ideal in which Socialism is a stepping stone to reaching. Many communists today view Capitalism as the sole reason for human suffering across the world. Philosophers throughout history have often had poor views of the economic system of the Free Market. The different theories between John Locke and Jean Jacque Rousseau over the relation between the state, the market, and the people show how it is not a recent struggle of political rhetoric. The practice of Mercantilism, in which the government regulated the market and the actions of merchants, was a very "Socialistic" ideal that caused a large rift between businessmen and the King.

Communism is most often seen today as a doomed ideal that will only succeed when mankind becomes completely benevolent and noble. Many argue that it is the ultimate form of living but is more or less unattainable in present circumstances. Two bastions of communist ideology today are the Southeast Asian countries of China and North Korea. China dubs itself the People's Republic of China, and claims to follow a close form of socialist ideology. North Korea is often viewed as an overly militaristic, authoritative and unemotional state that is more bent on maintaining the power of its leaders over the people than it is about thier welfare. It is not surprising that with examples like North Korea and the Soviet Union that communism has acquired a very distasteful name.

Isn't it appropriate for a hammer and sickle to be in this page? :) Victor 00:19:11, 13 April 2004 (UTC)

Communism/Socialism

Correct me if I'm wrong, but communism evolves into socialism, not the other way around.

You are wrong. Originally both words meant pretty much the same, as Marx and Engels didn't foresee any interim stages. But as USSR was not very successful building communism quickly, socialism started to mean what was already built. Then the term was applied to societies like Sweden and some other Western European countries. But communism doesn't evolve into socialism. Realistically it can only evolve into something like posthumanism. Paranoid 20:09, 30 May 2004 (UTC)

N korea

I have removed the following link. It's in Chinese (I think), so it won't be the official site of the communist party in North Korea.--Kokiri

*"http:// www . dprktime . com /" Communist Party of Dprkorea -In North Korea

Ronald Reagan

I removed the following text:

Ronald Reagan, a widely respected U.S. president in the second half of the 20th century, has defined communists as those who read Marx and Lenin; anti-communists are those who understand Marx and Lenin.

The reasons are:

1. It's out of place in the intro.
2. Widely respected is just your opinion and a logical fallacy as well (appeal to authority)
3. Clearly non-POV
4. Doesn't add any information relevant to topic.

If we really need to place it back (which I doubt), it should be rewritten to something like

Ronald Reagan, a U.S. president in the second half of the 20th century and a prominent anti-communist himself, has once defined communists as those who read Marx and Lenin and anti-communists as those who understand Marx and Lenin.

and inserted into proper place (i.e. a section which gives various opinions on communism).

Your first criticism is acceptable, the rest are not. I tried to compromise w placement and such, and you revertyed again. If my attept to satisfy your reasonable request regarding placement was unnaceptable, what else is needed? It is most certainly no fallacy to point out Reagan's widely respected opinion on the subject. It would also be acceptable to point out that he was an anti-communist. I will now do so. Sam [Spade] 13:26, 12 Jun 2004 (UTC)

OK, maybe not, I'm recieving a repeated database error. I suppose I'll just leave it as is until that clears up. Sam [Spade] 14:55, 12 Jun 2004 (UTC)

OK, we agree that it should be in some quotes section and that it would be informative to point out Reagan's stance on communism, nice. As for "widely respected", I think Reagan is no "Mahatma Ghandi". :) You may respect him, a lot of other Americans may respect him, but just as many people might despise him for attempting to start Star Wars, for being overly aggressive towards USSR (not really contributing to stability) and for other things. Slapping "widely respected" clearly works as an attempt to give greater weight to his opinion and it is not needed. These words should not be used lightly just to give more weight to your personal bias (See how they are used on Wikipedia: [1]). Otherwise I can just as well quote every Soviet or Islamic theorist on why America sucks monkey balls while calling them "prominent", "world famous", "infallible" and what not.

I am still not convinced we need that quote at all. IMO this is thinly guided name calling. It's obviously not true and the comment that communism didn't prove very practical can be (and is) made in better ways.Paranoid 15:18, 12 Jun 2004 (UTC)

Have a look. Sam [Spade] 18:12, 12 Jun 2004 (UTC)

OK. I am still not convinced we need this (after all, there are no racial slurs by KKK members in "Blacks" article), but ok. I moved prominent because his prominence as a president is irrelevant here and in any case noone can forget who he was in only 14 years. But his prominence as an anti-communist is important so that the reader understands the intent and the source of the quote. Paranoid 19:17, 12 Jun 2004 (UTC)

I would also like to hear opinions from other users. Do you think it is NPOV enough to have such loaded quotes included in the controversial articles (without proper context for them)? Paranoid 19:19, 12 Jun 2004 (UTC)

IMO you ought to put a quote by marx, or some such to even things out. The bit about context eludes me. How is this not in context? Its a general statement out on its own. Sam [Spade] 19:52, 12 Jun 2004 (UTC)

Proper context would be a detailed discussion of anti-communism (may be anti-communism in the US in particular). Without it, the quote sticks out like a sexist quote about women's place would be in Woman. As it is, there is simply no need to present an opinion of one particular person on communism in the article. Because if we include an obscure quote by Reagan, why not ten other quotes about communism? I checked out some other articles on controversial topics and nowhere are such quotes used.Paranoid 20:00, 12 Jun 2004 (UTC)

Without exception that I have noticed, anything under a ==Quotes== or ==Quotations== header is bloody useless, especially on controversial articles. This quotation is no different: it is clever and witty, but it lacks any real, useful information about the flaws of communism, and better analyses (those of the Austrian School, perhaps?) exist. (172's arguments on Talk:Michael Moore and US foreign policy#Delete this page are, I think, relevant here.)

How about, instead, putting the quotation in anti-Communism, with an explanation (if one exists) of why Reagan might have said it? That would be more informative (it would help explain the views of anti-Communists and how they were expressed) than dumping it in a section full of uncontextualized quotations. —No-One Jones 06:54, 13 Jun 2004 (UTC)

You assume there is some agreement that the thoughts of the austrian school (a communist think-tank, yes?) are "more real, useful.. better analyses" than reagan's? That would appear to me to be profoundly POV. This statement doesn't need an editor attempting to give it a slant based on why they think reagan might have said it. Quotes are useful because they give real peoples opinions about an issue, a fresh breath of air from all the editorial POV's which are so often slipped in. Let the man speak for himself, many claimed he defeated communism, and everyone knows he was mightilly signifigant in its history. Moving quote's like this only serves to silence criticism of the concept. Its not acceptable to place all criticism on the anti-communism page. Anti-communism is not just criticism of communism, its an intellectual movement (often said to have inspired neo-conservatism) in its own right. Sam [Spade] 19:09, 13 Jun 2004 (UTC)

I agree, Reagan's quote doesn't add anything to the article, it only angers communism proponents. This slant may belong to the page devoted to Reagan himself, or to the Sam Spade's bedroom wall, but definitely not here. Drbug 01:04, 17 Jun 2004 (UTC)

haha, I don't have anything on my bedroom wall... I do have a psalm of david on my garage wall tho... (I edit from my garage ;) Sam [Spade] 04:55, 17 Jun 2004 (UTC)

Reagan's quote should be in Wikiquote not in Wikipedia. Make a link to Wikiquote in this article. Andries 10:39, 24 Jun 2004 (UTC)

I would put Reagan's quote in the anti-communism article rather than in Communism. The phenomenon of Communism is one of that very small number of topics at Wikipedia which naturally is divided into (a) the thing itself and (b) advocacy against the thing. With the exception of anti-Semitism, it's hard to think of any thing else in this category.

Wherever it goes, it requires (a) an introduction and (b) quotation marks. (We might even pull in someone like Arnold Beichman, who has a similar attitude.) Reagan was sardonically implying that advocates of Marxism don't understand what they're proposing, i.e., that they're stupid. (Reminds me of Tolkien's reply to his critics who "read his book or at any rate reviewed it".) --Uncle Ed 21:42, 27 Jun 2004 (UTC)

Inaccurate Statement

I find the following statement to be misleading, so I removed it from the page.

Other communist movements, primarily Libertarian Socialism, differ with Leninism over the issue of the nature or importance of the party, and support for the idea of a government separate to working people's councils.

Libertarian socialism is not just a variant of communism. Especially if communism is defined in the article as being 'revolutionary'. Not all libertarian socialists believe in a 'revolution' (as opposed to an 'evolution'), and not all libertarian socialist self identify as 'communist'. There are some like council communists that might be regarded as libertarian socialists (but not all libertarian socialists are council communists, left-communists, etc.).

Also, what does ...differ with Leninism over the issue of the nature or importance of the party... mean? I don't think many libertarian socialists even consider 'the party' to be a valid issue.

The last portion of the sentance (...and support for the idea of a government separate to working people's councils.) doesn't even make grammatical sense to me. millerc 16:44, 13 Jun 2004 (UTC)

Semantics

As has often been remarked, pages on "socialism", "conservatism", "communism", "fascism", "right-wing", "left-wing", "liberalism" often founder on disagreements over the definitions of the words themselves.

Even an agreement on a dictionary-type definition might not be satisfactory as each of these words is overloaded with positive and negative connotations which are dependent on your POV.

A symptom of this is the attempt to prove socialism=communism=Stalinism or socialism=nazism so proving that FDR or Clement Attlee were the same as Hitler. On the other hand Bush is compared to Hitler: equally nonsensical. I dislike George W but see no resemblance whatsoever.

OK, end of moan - should we try to organise these political articles something like this

- An NPOV definition - theory - practice - history (as NPOV as possible) - positive views - critiques - wider discussion eg similarities with other ideas and movements, future, etc

ie with Communism

- definition (well, I think there will be several) - theory - Marx, Lenin, Mao etc - practice - communist states eg USSR, China, Cuba, also kibbutzes and similar organisations on communist lines - history - development of theory over time - positive views - hard to find nowadays but a few latter-day Marxist quotes can be unearthed - critiques - of the theory and practice - future - does it have one?

Exile

Kibbutzim piece removed

The following piece remove as irrelevant:

The 20th and 21st century kibbutzim continue that tradition with religious inspiration. They have given social scientists a chance to study the question: What are the effects of life without private property? In 1969 the psychologist Bruno Bettelheim, in a study of life on an Israeli kibbutz, wrote that children brought up in that communal environment experience great difficulty in making emotional commitments thereafter, such as falling in love or forming a lasting friendship.

"Nowhere more than in the kibbutz did I realize the degree to which private property, in the deep layers of the mind, relates to private emotions. If one is absent, the other tends to be absent as well" he wrote.

What is more, the general conclusion is false, not to say smelling of sensationalism. The whole history of the USSR without private property, as well as earlier histories of slavehood and serfdom shows the falseness of this conclusion. Mikkalai 18:46, 15 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Interesting. When I put this material into the Karl Marx article, a fellow editor rold me it would belong better in this one. So I compliantly relocated it here. I am going to restore it. Its perfectly relevant.

It certainly isn't "false" to say that Bettelheim drew this conclusion. Nor was he the only scholar to look into the matter and arrive at that. If you believe it is insufficiently balanced, and are familiar with some of the literature on the subject, feel free to what I have contributed here. Deletion is not addition. --Christofurio 19:33, Aug 15, 2004 (UTC)

The piece was removed as irrelevant to the issue, namely to communism an especially to the section you put the piece into. Why don't you put it to where it exactly belongs: to the discussion of kibbutz or private property?

Besides, I am not saying it is "false" that he drew this conclusion. I am saying that the conclusion is false and even presented a simple proof. Kibbutz is a very specifi environment to draw generalizations with respect to private property vs. emotions. Not to say that his writings are met with suspicion and criticism. Mikkalai 20:40, 15 Aug 2004 (UTC)

You are certainly entitled to believe his conclusions -- and those of others such as Melford E. Spiro, "Children of the Kibbutz" (Cambridge, Mass. 1958) who have reached much the same conclusion, are false. You are even entitled to reach that personal conclusion in the absense of evidence, and with a "simple proof" that is nonsensical. For example, your "simple proof" seems to imply that everybody agrees that the propertyless condition of slaves and serfs had no ill effects on their psychological development. Why do we agree to that?

But to say that the Spiro/Bettelheim work is "irrelevant" to this context is simply wrong. The broader context is an article about communism, and the specific context is the portion of that article dealing with small utopian communistic communities such as New Harmony -- which were much like the environments Spiro and Bettelheim studied, and weren't anything much like the lives of medieval serfs. --Christofurio 12:27, Aug 16, 2004 (UTC)

I begin to see your point. However if I understand you correctly, in this case the title of the section (Early communism) is wrong. It should be "Utopian communism".

Nevertheless the most proper place for Bettelheim's opinion is kibbutz article, where it has proper visibility and may be properly discussed by those who knows kibbutz things better. BTW the kibbutz article already has a "psychological" section with a similar statement. See you in kibbutz :-) Mikkalai 15:18, 16 Aug 2004 (UTC)

I appreciate your open-mindedness. But I still dislike articles that have a lot of vague sourcing, "some scholars say X, but there are others who say anti-X." I suspect people of using unnamed "scholars" as hand puppets when I encounter such prose, and I want names! Accordingly, I've restored BB's name to this passage, although since you're concerned there's too much of him here I've deleted the quote from his work on the subject, leaving only a succinct paraphrase. And you're right that "utopian communism" is a good headline. The next place I want to work on is the article about Bettelheim himself, which seems dominated by a jaundiced POV as it stands. From kibbutzing to kibbitzing! --Christofurio

Victims of communist regimes

Why aren't the dozens of millions of victims of Communist regimes even mentioned in this article? --McCorrection 12:41, 21 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Done. Mikkalai

Where? I just read through it and did not see one mention of the 7 to 10 million Ukranians killed by Stallin, nor the 40 million Chinese killed by sheer ineptitude during Mao's cultural revolution in the first few years. - Sept. 28, 2004

That's because those were self-proclaimed communist regimes, which had very little to do with actual communism as defined by Marx, Engels, Lenin, Rosa Luxemburg and all other Marxists (at least until the 1920's). Also, since the above comments were posted, we have decided that this article should only deal with the universally recognized parts of communism (or communist theory). You will find the death tolls you're looking for in the articles on Stalin, Mao, and "communist states". -- Mihnea Tudoreanu 17:12, 28 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Re: Inaccurate Statement

Millerc writes

“I find the following statement to be misleading, so I removed it from the page.

‘Other communist movements, primarily Libertarian Socialism, differ with Leninism over the issue of the nature or importance of the party, and support for the idea of a government separate to working people's councils.’

Libertarian socialism is not just a variant of communism. Especially if communism is defined in the article as being 'revolutionary'. Not all libertarian socialists believe in a 'revolution' (as opposed to an 'evolution'), and not all libertarian socialist self identify as 'communist'. There are some like council communists that might be regarded as libertarian socialists (but not all libertarian socialists are council communists, left-communists, etc.).

Also, what does ...differ with Leninism over the issue of the nature or importance of the party... mean? I don't think many libertarian socialists even consider 'the party' to be a valid issue.

The last portion of the sentence (...and support for the idea of a government separate to working people's councils.) doesn't even make grammatical sense to me. millerc 16:44, 13 Jun 2004 (UTC)”

“Especially if communism is defined in the article as being 'revolutionary'.”

The article says that these terms are “often used to describe revolutionary philosophies…”, but not that they are necessarily always revolutionary.

“I don't think many libertarian socialists even consider 'the party' to be a valid issue.”

Vanguardism is rejected by libertarian socialists, this is because in practice a dictatorship of the proletariat becomes a dictatorship over the proletariat.

How about instead of “Libertarian Socialism” given as an example in the removed statement, we change it to “anarcho-communism and anarcho-syndicalism”, with the Spanish revolution given as an example of these philosophies in practice?

Death

from the article:

By some some estimates (http://www.hawaii.edu/powerkills/COM.ART.HTM), communist governments have been responsible for the deaths of over 100 million people. Therefore opponents of communism see it as a dangerous ideology, similar in effect to fascism.

OTOH: with the same logic one could argue that the current capitalist system is responsible for 10-40 million people starving each year. i would argue to either remove that paragraph alltogether and focus on stalins terror instead. of course stalinism has not much to do with communism neither - see the debate above...

The logic in not the same. Communists purposefully killed people for ideological reasons. Starvation is in a way a "natural" result of a "natural" indifference to the fate of those whom you don't know. Can you claim that capitalists deliberately starve the population of Ethiopia? At best, they just let them die, as it was for millenia. Communists claimed they wanted to change this. They proposed to make people happy. Who didn't want to be happy (in communist's way), was killed. Mikkalai 17:56, 3 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Now, communism vs. stalinism. Stalin was bad. So they say. But who was better (among Russian boslheviks)? Trotsky, with his work army? Antonov-Ovseenko? Bukharin? All these martyrs were more than ready to make more martyrs. Every ideology is good only so much as people who preach it. Every good idea may be turned into its opposite. How about the inquisition period in the history of christianity? Church overcame its illness. Communism didn't have its chance. Mikkalai 18:18, 3 Sep 2004 (UTC)

The guy who originally put in that link and line had something of an agenda (like, "communism is evil" kind of agenda). The website that's linked is also very biased. I think this probably would be better in communist states than on the ideology page. It's not really POV per se...but there is something wrong about it. I dunno. The line about opponents comparing it to facism has been there a long time I think...personally, I would just move it to communist states.Yossarian 22:13, Sep 3, 2004 (UTC)

Yossarian, communism really happened to be "the most murderous ideology in history", it's a known historical fact. Now the problem is that the article mostly documents the ideology, not what it happened to have as byproducts. Fascism would probably have resulted in even more victims, should it have "lived" longer, or at least as long as communism. So there's no wrong in the figures per se -- the wrong is in the fact that it just happened for communism to live longer, that's all. And honestly, on a side note, by all standards, communism is a wrong idea in this era, I could talk anyone out of it, if only I could talk to all people who think it's somewhat good. Whoever reads these lines and disagrees, leave a note on my talk page and I'll be happy to answer. --Gutza 22:50, 3 Sep 2004 (UTC)

you are right: the logic is not the same. stalin abused the ideas of communism and killed people. communism does not want people starving. so theses matters are not a feature of the communist idea. while on the other side: if you do not have money for food or health care then capitalism does not care if you die or not. capitalism happily invests in cosmetic research and not in curing deseases that you only find in the third world..etc..etc... so while on the one hand you have an abuse of the system the fact that people are dieing and nobody cares is an immanent feature of the system... this makes the case worse for capitalism... Mond 23:07, 3 Sep 2004 (UTC)

To whom it may concern -- I've written a reply to this 'logic' on Mr. Mond's talk page.--Christofurio 12:22, Sep 7, 2004 (UTC)

I just felt that it belonged more on the communist states page...I'm not denying that the likes of Stalin or Pol Pot are loathsome creatures (I'd have to be a friggin' moron). But saying it's "the most murderous idealogy in history", is misleading (and wrong). I didn't mean it was a wrong thing to think, I just meant it's wrong on the idealogy page.Yossarian

On a side note, let's keep our agendas and politics to ourselves, shall we? Whether communism is a valid form of government is not the point. This is an encyclopedia, not a political debate. And no, I'm not a communist...I just like the hammer and sickle...that's a kick ass symbol:-).

This whole debate is moot since the offending lines belong more properly with Anti-Communism Section 2 (perhaps worthy of it's own subsection -- I dont know.) That doesn't make this a "Pro-Communist" page per se, but it would be irresponsible to treat it as a place to make speculations on the number of deaths it may have caused.

As a point of personal opinion, I would go so far as to say that it isnt even relevant to have a death toll on an ideology page at all. Since the effects of rulers acting under their interpretation can, and often does, have little to do with fundemental ideology, it would be unfair to consider these deaths resultant of communist theory. Oceanhahn Since we're having a little opinion free-for-all, I think I'll join in the fun: If we're going by a literal (and therefore vague) definition of "ideology", then I'd go so far as to say that organized religion has caused more deaths than ANY OTHER IDEOLOGY -- or perhaps even several combined. I know which religion I'm talking about, so I'll leave it at that.

This article is still shameful in its quasi-propagandist promotion of Communism. The death toll of Communism should be mentioned. The dismal record of human rights in all communist regimes should also be presented. Anyway, thanks to Mikkalai for trying. Too bad this article has been ideologically hijacked. --McCorrection 01:52, 11 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Sigh...again, AGAIN, I stress this is mostly an article about the ideology (the theory!) of communism.

The dismal record of human rights in all communist regimes should also be presented.

I agree. 100 percent. The actions of communist regimes should be discussed in the communist regimes (states) page (or the Soviet Union page, or the Stalinism page, or the anti-communism page, or the Khmer Rouge page, or the Pol Pot page...and so on and so on and so on...). Not here. NOT here. The theory in no way advocates these actions. I suppose a mentioning could be made, but I see no point. Communism in theory and "communism" in practice are entirely different subjects (I would say there's call for a seperate article). As for "quasi-propaganda" edit the page yourself if you feel it's POV. That's how yah do it. It probably is a little biased. I've mostly been correcting bad grammar for the past little while (this page attracts it like a porchlight for bad grammar bugs...excuse the poor analogy). So don't accuse anyone of "hijacking" if you refuse to do anything about it yourself.Yossarian 02:28, Sep 11, 2004 (UTC)

I agree with Yossarian. I dont see what the effects of so-called "communist" states have had upon the human population has to do with the often-perverted theology behind it. To say that Stalin represents communism is like saying that Augusto Pinochet represents capitalist thoery or that the massacres in Indonesia were the embodiment of all American foreign policy. It just doesnt fit.

--Oceanhahn 02:32, 11 Sep 2004 (UTC)

The deaths and suffering caused by Communist regimes are indissociably linked with their ideology: it is an ideology which promotes civil unrest, class warfare, and the demonization of individuals and groups of individuals. There is no "capitalist theory" on which Pinochet based himself; actually, there is no "capitalist theory" at all, but the theorization of aspects common to Western and Western-influenced modern market economies. --McCorrection 11:55, 11 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Really? And which part of communist ideology tells you to cause "death and suffering", exactly? Or, for that matter, which particular version of "communist ideology" are you referring to? For your information, my historically-challenged friend, there is no such thing as a single, monolithical "communist ideology". There are many different communist ideologies, which share the same roots, but disagree with each other on numerous points. Lenin does not fully agree with Marx, Trotsky does not fully agree with Lenin, and Stalin sure as hell doesn't agree with Trotsky. Regarding "civil unrest and class warfare", I need to remind you that those are the same things that got us out of feudalism and abolished absolute monarchy. As for the "demonization of individuals and groups of individuals", the funny thing is that the only one doing any demonizing here is you - you're demonizing communists, to be more exact. And if you think there's no such thing as "capitalist theory", you must have been living under a rock for the past 300 years. Perhaps you might have heard of a Scottish chap called Adam Smith? Or perhaps you might recall something called the Austrian school of economics? One of its prominent economists happened to be Milton Friedman, and Pinochet's Chicago boys happened to be fervent zealots of Friedman's capitalist theory.

-- Mihnea Tudoreanu

This is just to make it clear to any neutral party: I did not call anyone names. However, the first response I get to my message (the very first) resorts to ad hominem attacks. I could lower myself to that level, but I won't: dear Mihnea, you can keep one of the most biased articles in Wikipedia all to yourself.

The ad hominem fallacy consists of attacking your opponent instead of his arguments, or claiming that your opponent's arguments are wrong because there is something objectionable about the opponent himself. Merely insulting your opponent is not an ad hominem, my friend.

Regarding Adam Smith, von Hayek, Friedman, please note what I had stated: what is usually called "Capitalist Theory" is nothing more than "the theorization of aspects common to Western and Western-influenced modern market economies"; i.e. Capitalism is more adequately defined as a phenomenon, while the theory you have in mind is called liberalism.

You're arguing semantics. Whether we call it "liberal/libertarian theory" or "capitalist theory" is irrelevant. The point is that the economic system of capitalism does have a theoretical base.

There are very good articles on ideologies in Wikipedia. The article on Fascism, to mention another ideology with dangerous consequences, is very informative and impartial. It is a pity, thus, that the article on the most influential ideology of the 20th Century is so partial. If, however, Minhea Tudoreanu's position turns out to be the dominant one, and there is no such thing as THE "Communist ideology", but a miriad of "Communist ideologies", then this article should be limited to the very essential dictionary concept (which it isn't right now), with links to all variations of the concept. --McCorrection 18:54, 11 Sep 2004 (UTC)

The essential difference between Fascist dictatorships and "Communist" dictatorships is that the Fascist dictators themselves invented their ideology, while the Communist dictators used and abused an ideology which had been invented over 60 years before them. Mussolini invented Fascism, but Stalin did not invent Communism.

As for "dangerous consequences", I would argue that no ideology is more dangerous, dehumanizing and outright evil than libertarian capitalism, but I have no intention to insert my evaluation of that ideology (or any ideology, for that matter) into its article.

Finally, regarding the plurality of Communist ideologies, keep in mind that they all share a common root as I have stated from the beginning. This article deals with that common root and everything else shared by all (or most) Communist ideologies.

-- Mihnea Tudoreanu

That's because Facism does advocate murder and war and all that other stuff in its ideology. Mussolini was very bent on that I believe...and he even went so far as to put it in his political theories! Sounds like its an important part the ideology.

Communism advocates revolution? What?! So did the forefathers of the US. The used it too! Heck, they even demonized individuals...the British crown! By your reasoning, they must have been those evil communists too.

Listen, if you feel the article is POV, then change it. Just don't go around screaming how certain communists are dangerous. THAT's POV.

It seems a bit odd to say, first, that the "forefathers of the US...demonized individuals" and, second, to identify the "british crown" (rather than, say, George III!) as an example -- your only example -- of this supposed tendency. Surely the "British crown" is an institution, not an individual, and precisely that institution whence they were declaring independence. How nicely-nice were they supposed to be in discussing it? If I said, "I think the character of Luke Skywalker is an artistic failure, so I won't go see Star Wars any more," am I demonizing Mark Hamill? --Christofurio 01:43, Sep 12, 2004 (UTC)

(Look of bemusement) Uh...huh...Well, first, I said "British crown" for no other reason than I couldn't be bothered to look up the right king...and besides, British crown just sounded cooler to me (though I get the point, it was factually and grammatically inacurate)...I should have said "the King of Great Britain and Ireland, George III, and the members of the British parliament, in fealty to His Majesty, as well as the appointed loyalist governments and Monarchists of the Thirteen Colonies"...but that's such a mouth full, you see.

Anyway, my point is this: I believed that (McCorrection) was saying that communists demonized people...and that was somehow unique and was not to be praised (plus I was angry...so sue me). I said that the American revolutionaries did the same thing (which is what revolutionaries do!) because it contradicted him, because they're considered brave, (and I wasn't condemning them) and patriots and all that, and that civil disobedience is sometimes smiled upon...and...er...uh...mmm...ARGH! WHY AM I EXPLAINING THIS? IT'S PETTY AND STUPID! Why on earth do I care?!! I'VE WASTED MY TIME!!! Sigh...Besides, Luke Skywalker is an artistic failure and I won't be seeing Star Wars anymore.

So there. : )

-- Yossarian 02:20, Sep 12, 2004 (UTC)

Rearranging the article

Dear Anonymous: once again, what I have said has been distorted. Actually, I had not even mentioned the word "revolution". I could have editted the text, but I first must feel the ground here, because it would be useless to enter into some kind of edit war, which should be avoided. What do you all think, for example, of my last proposal: that "this article should be limited to the very essential dictionary concept (which it isn't right now), with links to all variations of the concept", including a specific article on "Communist ideologies", that would include most of the current content? And please, no more personal attacks or distortion of words; I think we can all debate as reasonable human beings, can't we?--McCorrection 20:03, 11 Sep 2004 (UTC)

I think that would be a good idea (that's just me though. I don't know how everyone else feels. I'm perfectly willing to let it stay as is). A communist ideologies page would be beneficial, in that one could discuss the various conflicts/similarities, practices, etc. There are already articles on specific ideologies though (some are very scant though)...would you say combine them, or would you take bits and pieces from each, create a new article, and then keep them as separate?

I think the bulk of the information in Communism right now is mostly from Marx's (with a bit of a Leninist twist) theories. There is a lot of useful information here, and it would be a shame to delete it. As for essential dictionary definition...could you be more specific? Would we be talking about the minimum, pure theory (or idea) in that of itself, as put forth by Marx and Engels, or something else? (I'm not entirely sure what you mean). Anyway, that's how I would do it. "Communism" is a very broad subject, and perhaps some sort of series is in order. There is also some controversy as to what a communist really is. If you follow the dictionary definition, then none of the previous regimes were in fact communist (it would be a contradiction in terms...they're barely socialists most of the time). How would you propose eliminating that problem? I think it's important to decide what is and what isn't a communist. I agree that need to get it all clear before anybody does anything (and make sure we have a consensus as to what in fact needs to be done).

Let's make one other agreement: nobody goes political, nobody brings any agenda to the table, nobody tries to insert opinion. We can very easily discuss the crimes of those states and leaders who claim to be "communists", as we can discuss the theories and ideologies of actual communism.

Let there be peace. -- Yossarian 22:13, Sep 11, 2004 (UTC)

PS: just realized that the "Anonymous" you're referring to was me...I had forgotten to put my name...Sorry. I was a little pissed.

Thank you, Yossarian, that is what I meant. I never intended to be confrontational and I am sorry about that impression. A "dictionary definition" would include some of the concepts in the first paragraph of the article, such as "a social theory and political movement for the direct and communal control of society towards the common benefits of all members" (Religious "primitive" Communism) as well as "revolutionary philosophies [and ideologies] based on the theories espoused by Karl Marx" and subsequent Marxist thinkers. Then most of the article would be relocated to a new "Utopian Communism" article and to a new "Communist Theory" page. --McCorrection 23:20, 11 Sep 2004 (UTC)

There is absolutely no reason to delete the informative content that is already present in this article. I agree it would be good to create a "communist ideologies" page in addition to this one, and a Communism Series might also be useful, but we must not remove content for no reason. We should only edit and/or add. I also do not see any reason to turn each of the various sections in this article into separate articles in their own right, as you are proposing, simply because they are not long enough to justify such action. If we were to have separate articles on "Utopian Communism", "Marxist Communism", and so on, we would have to add a lot of new content on those subjects - otherwise we'd end up with a long list of stubs.

-- Mihnea Tudoreanu

I don't think that he is suggesting turning all the seperate sections on the page into seperate articles...except (I think) Theory and Practice and Utopian communism (unless I've misunderstood), as they could very easily be expanded upon. The other sections (e.g. The ideas of Marx and Engels, Language and the adjective communist, etc.) seem to be in the right place. Those afformentioned ones are the only ones I would conceivably move. Otherwise, the other sections relate simply to communism in the theoretical sense, mostly neutral of denomination (someone should have a look). The ideas of Marx and Engels should stay, as they are the ones who came up with the whole thing. I think this idea does need a bit of fleshing out though...what are your thoughts?

-- Yossarian 00:58, Sep 12, 2004 (UTC)

Yossarian is right (and so is Mihnea in his/her worries about a "long list of stubs"). "Communist Theory" and "Utopian Communism" would fulfill historical and theoretical purposes and the article would be then reshaped as an encyclopedical "portal" of a Communist theory and practice series (there are many related articles, but they're not coherently organized). Is anyone interested in giving it a try? --McCorrection 01:54, 12 Sep 2004 (UTC)

I'd like to, but I don't think I'm quite up to the task (my knowledge of Communism is slightly above average, but mostly limited to the kind from Marx and the kind from the Soviet Union). Plus I wouldn't know where to start. I'd definately help as much as I could in any effort though. But, we should probably wait for a bit more input.--Yossarian 03:36, Sep 13, 2004 (UTC)

Personally I dont see what's wrong with this page, to a single and glaring fault: the name. Most of what is in there pertains to communist ideology (as Yossarian said, mostly that of Marx), but it has the ambiguous name "Communism", and is therefore a site for flames and edit-wars.

I have already taken the liberty of creating a Communist Ideology stub for the theory; perhaps the historical implications can be located at the Communist states page under "History," or some such heading.

I would be willing to assist in rebuilding and reorganization the Communism pages into the sets you've described above, but before we make any such endeavours, perhaps we should consider cataloging the existing data (a list of pages which we have right now), considering a format for the new page(s) (recompilation), and of course checking for any opposition to such a move.

I agree completely with McCorrection and Mihnea, except for the matter of names. I think that a revised "Communist States", or perhaps "History of Communism" would make a far clearer name for the reality of the party whereas "Communist Ideology" is more suggestive of the theory behind it.

In the meantime, though, perhaps we could take discussion of the reformatting of the "Communist-Series" of pages to the ideology page I have created. If we agree on some grand scheme to redo the whole mess, then we can propose it here -- and in the other effected pages -- and hopefully get some sense of agreement among them then.

Maybe I've gone too far and I'm thinking too big. What I'm thinking for now is just redesignating this page a portal as was mentioned above and moving all the theory to a new spot with a better name. Hopefully afterwards the Communist states page can be rebuilt, so to speak. As for stubs, I think that it already is that way. Yossarian points it out on his user page that there are already three different pages describing socialism. Perhaps we can begin by streamlining what pages there are, beginning with this one here.

--Oceanhahn 09:10, 13 Sep 2004 (UTC)

In hindsight, I realized that I'd changed the purpose of 'Communist Ideologies' from the institutional to the theoretical. My apoligies to Yossarian and for any confusion that this has caused...

-- Oceanhahn 10:11, 13 Sep 2004 (UTC)

4 pages actually. But who's counting? : ) Ach...more later...this all sounds good.

Update: take a look at the talk for Communist Ideology. Mostly it's by JFO; I added a few names and countries. His plans seem quite good. Check it out and give feedback on the section for talk (within the talk section). Feel free also to add links and any other sources of information.

-- Yossarian 22:16, Sep 13, 2004 (UTC)

I have a different idea: Why don't we make a Communism series, like the one for Liberalism? The massive changes you are proposing seem to be rather unjustified. Look at the articles for Anarchism, Socialism, Liberalism, Conservatism, Fascism, etc. - they're not lists of links pointing to various other sub-articles, are they? And some of those ideologies have just as many (if not more) different and conflicting flavours than communism. Think of classical liberalism and social-liberalism, for example. Or the myriad forms of anarchism. -- Mihnea Tudoreanu 11:51, 14 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Removal

• Also, it appears that communism didn't cutted deeper into more sophisticated but no less humiliating forms of exploatation. For example, little if anything is done on the prevention of prostitution. All communist countries continued to produce and distribue mild narcotics like tobacco and alcohol. Like in capitalist countries, very few people were employed in education. Great importance was given to solely prestigious activities like elite sport etc. -- Irrelevant to "Communism"

English

Frankly, I think it's a pretty good article. I think the kibbutz thing is out of place in the discussion and should be removed, but if it isn't removed, I wouldn't consider it a great problem. What bugs me is How The Article Is Written. I think it would be nice if we went through it and fixed the spelling errors and de-tangled some of the sentences. All minor edits, but worth doing, dontcha think? If no one acts on this, I will in a few weeks when I can hack some time out of my nutty schedule to do it. Once it has a better flow to the writing, it could be a Very Good Article. Best to all.

Hwarwick

I took some time to take care of this problem due to this post (I didn't realize it was so bad...), and hopefully I've made some good head way. I had to remove some things due to (firstly) irrelevance, and (secondly) grammatical nonsense (if you find some of it was relevant, feel free to look into the old edits and put it back...just use friggin' good grammar dang it!). I hopefully didn't muck up any facts in the process, but if anyone more knowledgeable sees something...well, you know what to do.

Cheers!

Yossarian 07:27, Sep 8, 2004 (UTC)

Possible POV error to be corrected

In the article the following is stated-

Marx had predicted, however, that revolution would first occur in the heavily industrialised countries of the West, making no mention of a Communist party. Marx was ultimately proven wrong, as the first revolution began in the relatively backward Tsarist Russia (then a mostly rurally based peasant state).

I think this statement may present a problem. Many authorities on Marx would disagree with the claim that Marx was proven wrong 'ultimately'. The above statement is a POV statement which reflects the opinion of the Bolsheviks/Leninists. Marx argued that the proletariat would have to be a numerical majority or it wouldn't be a proletarian revolution. The industrial working class who marx termed the proletariat only had 3-5 or so million people in Tsarist Russia, and consider the the peasantry made up well over 100 million persons. The figures on the French Revolution are similar enough that I ask if it would be reasonable to think that Marx would have thought the Russian Revolution was more like the French, and not a proletarian revolution as such as was proclaimed by Lenin, Trotsky and Stalin? Also consider that the development of the Russian Revolution was not consistent with the view Marx had of what socialism was or would be. -Capone 01:34, 14 Sep 2004 (UTC)

First of all, the word "ultimately" doesn't belong there because, despite Mr. Fukuyama's wishful thinking, history never ends. 20th century "communism" may well have been a fluke, and the real proletarian revolution may come at some point in the future. Second of all, Marx didn't "predict" anything - other than the rather common sense fact that nothing lasts forever. Contrary to common belief, Marx never said that communism (or proletarian revolution, or anything of that sort) is "inevitable". He said that the end of capitalism is inevitable, but the end of capitalism may not necessarily come from a revolution. Revolution is only one of the two possible outcomes of class struggle - the other being a Roman Empire-style collapse of the system.

As for the issue of where the revolution would occur, here lies one of the major differences between Marxism and Leninism. Marxism states that the revolution would first occur in one of the advanced capitalist countries. Lenin, in his book Imperialism, the highest stage of capitalism argued that as capitalism turned into a global system, the ruling classes of rich countries would exploit the proletariat of poorer nations rather than their own proletariat at home, because a revolution on another continent is far less dangerous to them than a revolution at home. Therefore, Lenin argued that a world revolution was necessary, and this revolution would have to begin in one of the poorer exploited nations.

-- Mihnea Tudoreanu 12:12, 14 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Is it common sense that "nothing lasts forever"? Depends on whether your definition of forever is truly cosmic, I suppose. But in terms of human history or prospects, I suspect its fair to say that gravity will last forever. If we're talking about features of human nature and social interaction, it isn't common sense but a quite controversial, Hegel-inspired, assertion to say that nothing lasts forever. One way of phrasing the capitalist contention, in its pragmatic rather than its moralistic form, is to say that the law of supply and demand is the human society equivalent of gravity -- it can be hidden or denied in periods, but it won't seek to operate. I'm not being pedantic -- or maybe I am -- but I'm also trying to keep you from slipping in your own POV under the name of "common sense" or anything else that might sound misleadingly NPOV here. --Christofurio

First of all, I've taken the liberty of attaching your signature (it seems you had forgotten about it). Onto the actual discussion, of course I didn't bother to NPOV my last message. This is a Talk page, so there's nothing wrong with me expressing my opinion, is it? You seem to be severely overreacting there, my friend.

I wrote two grafs together and attached my sig at the end of the block. Is that such an unusual practice as to confuse you? And, yes, I'm perfectly happy to have you express your POV on the talk page. That's what it is for. My objection was to your use of the phrase "common sense" for your own POV. I don't think that the conception that "nothing lasts forever" is common sensical, or true, for reasons I tried to provide. Now lets get to them! --Christofurio 15:17, Sep 14, 2004 (UTC)

At the time when I started writing my reply, you had not yet posted the second paragraph. But this is irrelevant anyway. The one thing that is relevant is that you massively overreacted to my use of a simple term... and that both of us have gone off on a wild tangent, completely unrelated to the original topic. -- Mihnea Tudoreanu 16:24, 14 Sep 2004 (UTC)

But since you've launched an argument, I feel obligated to reply. First of all, comparing a law of physics (such as gravity) with a social phenomenon (such as your beloved capitalism) is not only misleading, but an outright fallacy. The law of gravity can be demonstrated to be valid in all circumstances, using the scientific method. The law of supply and demand cannot. In fact, human beings have lived for thousands of years in a system of "primitive communism". Since the dawn of Homo Sapiens, we have spent more time living without private property than living with it. Therefore, using your line of logic, I might say that communism is the human society equivalent of gravity, which can only be hidden or denied for relatively short (compared to the total age of Mankind) periods. But I will not make such a claim, because your line of logic is flawed in the first place. -- Mihnea Tudoreanu 12:58, 14 Sep 2004 (UTC)

I didn't compare gravity with capitalism, or any other social phenomenon. I compared gravity to the law of supply and demand -- a very different matter. If there were any periods when S and D didn't operate, you'd have to do more to show it than simply to say so. This operation would have been more difficult to measure in periods without currency or prices than in periods with them, but it would be real so long as there was trade of any sort. Your reference to "private property" here is an utter red herring. Two people could barter their different sources of labor. If I'm better at making spears than you are, I might agree to make you spears in return for a share of the proceeds from your hunting with them. That transaction would be governed by the law of supply and demand. You might have other good spear-makers to go to, or I might be a local monopolist in this skill, etc. The broad features of such bargaining are just as constant as gravity, my friend. --Christofurio 15:17, Sep 14, 2004 (UTC)

Funny, I don't recall the moment when the law of supply and demand got included in the study of physics. Your comparison is still flawed. Again, I must point out that the law of gravity can be demonstrated to be valid in all circumstances, using the scientific method, while the law of supply and demand cannot (in fact, it's not even clear how an experiment could be conducted and what exactly are the circumstances that should be tested in the case of S and D). As for my reference to private property, it is not a red herring at all. Consider the following: How can you barter things when you can't own things? If there is no concept of private property over spears, how can you make me spears? (as opposed to making them for public use)

You can only make S and D "as constant as gravity" if you dillute the idea until it is so broad that it encompasses every possible kind of human interaction. -- Mihnea Tudoreanu 16:24, 14 Sep 2004 (UTC)

It isn't physics, but that doesn't make economics unscientific, or exempt from law. Experimental economics is a fascinating subject. You might want to read the book Paving Wall Street by Ross M. Miller (2002), especially chapters 3-5, to get an idea of how such experiments are conducted and what their results thus far have been. As to ownership -- I would say that its legitimacy derives from the pragmatic value of trade. Since specialization of function is so useful, trade is inevitable, and people have to be regarded as owning things to help it along. But I'm not sure whether your latest comments on the subject are addressed to the world you would like to see, or some world that you think once existed. Do you believe there was a wide span of human history during which there was no trading whatsoever? Or are you just saying that whatever trade happens, you consider it illegitimate? For a second there it appeared that you were making a historical claim, now you seem to be shifting ground on me. Further, if you will concede that there likely has always been some bartering, would you contend that there have been periods during which trades were conducted in which neither the supply of the goods/services nor the extent of the demand of them had any impact on the terms of the deal? --Christofurio 19:25, Sep 14, 2004 (UTC)

Also, Marxists speak not of the coming end of history but of its coming beginning. Only upon the emergence of true communism will human history truly begin. Sounds like something considered pretty ultimate, from the point of view of the pre-history we've all been living through and mistakenly thinking of as history. I like your idea that 20th century efforts in that direction were a fluke. If the fundamental idea is misconceived (like the idea of turning oceans into lemonade, say) then subsequent efforts will be likewise. --Christofurio 12:30, Sep 14, 2004 (UTC)

You must have been talking to the wrong Marxists. I certainly don't know any who would claim that we're living in "prehistory" or that communism will be the "beginning of history". And I know quite a few, being a Marxist myself. In fact, you don't need to look any further than the Communist Manifesto to see the phrase "all hitherto history". So please take your strawmen elsewhere.

I don't invoke strawmen, and this item is evidence that I know the founder of your tradition better than you do. Here is a link where you cvanread a discussion of that "prehistory" phrase, which is not due to any Marxist friends of mine but comes from Marx himself, the manuscripts of 1844. --Christofurio 15:17, Sep 14, 2004 (UTC)

http://economics.about.com/cs/moffattentries/a/marx_2.htm

Thank you for that little bit of irrelevant trivia from the early years of Marx's career. And congratulations on pointing out the rather obvious fact that I have not actually read every single thing ever written by him. You didn't need to go to all this trouble for it, however. I daresay neither of us can claim to hold absolute knowledge of the works of any man - Karl Marx or any other.

As for the actual "prehistory" phrase itself, assuming it was supposed to have any significance beyond being a simple metaphor, I (and most other Marxists) disagree with it. -- 16:24, 14 Sep 2004 (UTC)

As for the 20th century fluke, you seem to really love attacking strawmen, because I never made a statement as absurd or all-encompassing as "all 20th century efforts in that direction were a fluke". I said that 20th century "communism" ("stalinism"; the Soviet model; etc. - NOT "all efforts") might have been a fluke. -- Mihnea Tudoreanu 12:58, 14 Sep 2004 (UTC)

I wasn't attacking your statement at all, I was praising it as perceptive. --Christofurio 15:17, Sep 14, 2004 (UTC)

Yes, of course you were, except that my conclusions on this issue are utterly different from yours. At any rate, we seem to be distancing ourselves quite a lot from the original point of this section, wouldn't you say? -- Mihnea Tudoreanu 16:24, 14 Sep 2004 (UTC)

No doubt. I just wanted to say that I appreciated that particular phrase about 20th century communism being a fluke, and I think (this is not a view I impute to you) that every subsequent variety will prove to be likewise. I never used the word "all," which you inserted in trying to quote me in order to make it appear that I was (praising) a strawman. I neither praise nor blame strawmen but do my best to go after what real people said. Marx did say that history will truly begin once the revolution is won and alienation ends, so it is fair to say that he viewed communism in eschatological fashion. If you disagree with him on that account, I am happy to have helped disenchant you with his real views. If you think he was only using a metaphor, I suggest you look up the passage and its context. --Christofurio 19:25, Sep 14, 2004 (UTC)

I can dig this up from the marxist internet archive if there are disagreements on the following. Marx referred to Communism as the end of the history of the class struggle and the beginning of the history of human civilization. It's the end of history making man and the beginning of man making his own history. Does this ring a bell with both you guys? --Capone 21:10, 14 Sep 2004 (UTC)

On economics, supply and demand has always existed since there were always physical supplies of goods or realizable goods on the one hand, and needs and wants on the other. To say that at times the supplies were adequate or even exceeded the demand, in history, given a certain people or grouping or tribe at a certain time and place using a certain form of technology with a certain kind of culture, does not negate that there existed a supply and a demand. That there is a supply and a demand which can be perceived or can come into conflict with one another (in the consumers eyes) only becomes really visible when demand exceeds supply. Supply and demand directly relate to physics in that both are demonstrable empirically. However, such a demonstration is possible only through the historical record, and not as suggested above, by closed experiments or theoretical models. Using theoretical 'normative' models to demonstrate positive economics is to resort to a-scientific Platonic induction. Only through a deductive analysis of the historical positive model of reality can real assesments of economic life be made. Closed systems on paper do not take into account the open systems on the ground. However, private property as it is understood today as being 'itself a commodity' only comes onto the scene when there develops the material basis (practicality) of having private property like a permanent surplus of goods possible with the domestication of plants and animals. I think the page anthropology and physical anthropology and cultural anthropology delve into this, as quite a bit has been deduced about prehistorical social formations. The idea of 'man the individual', is a Rousseauian construct based upon an ideal state of man as a rugged individual, not based in the scientific or historical record, and would be considered a minority view in the sciences if it were to be revived in such a forum. Biology confirms that man is a primarily a social being, beginning with the birth of the individual and the heavy resource investment required by the tribe to bring to adolescence each young individual. --Capone 21:10, 14 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Has anyone here actually read Francis Fukuyama's works? He is probably one of the most misquoted thinkers of our times, and most people base their whole assumptions on his thoughts on the title of one of his books...

Well, I hope it soon becomes clear why this article must be rearranged. JFO, you can begin.--McCorrection 21:14, 14 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Kind of like Marx -Capone 21:30, 14 Sep 2004 (UTC)

(Low whistle)...now THAT's an argument! Yes, JFO definately needs to begin...

--Yossarian 23:33, Sep 14, 2004 (UTC)

Not that Marx was an issue for me; and he's not a thinker of our times... Anyway, this whole section, in which great confusion is made between the ideology and the regimes (which have effetively failed), is an evolving proof that the new article is greatly needed, for encyclopedical, objective purposes. JFO, do you need any help? --McCorrection 23:44, 14 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Good lord! My watchlist is failing me! I missed this entire section until just now. I'll see what i can do about a new article right away.

Also, as a matter of personal curiousity, perhaps User:Christofurio and User:Mihnea Tudoreanu should have a page somewhere where they can go about their arguments. Don't misunderstand, I take great pleasure in reading such things, but consider breifly that over the course of seven and one half hours, you two have been wholly responsible for the creation of at least 1.5 pages of new text (size jump from ~42 kilobytes to ~76kb). Don't draw offense; it's absolutely fascinating, but a bit overwhelming to walk in to.

McCorrection - As is always the case, any help is appreciated. I'll probably be doing a lot of editing on the Ideology page, and if you could help by leaving notes in the appropriate Talk section, it would speed thigns along I'm certain. Thanks!

See New Article creation notes at Communist Ideology -- Oceanhahn 02:28, 16 Sep 2004 (UTC)

As of a few minutes ago, the communism page proudly wears the {{controversial}} tag. I can't figure out hy this page has never had one in the past; it is a prime embodiment of controversy. Please do not remove tag this until the revisions which are taking place now are completed. Thank you. -- Oceanhahn 02:54, 16 Sep 2004 (UTC)

unintelligible sentence

I don't understand this sentence: 'Shy of the word "communism" itself (because of its negative connotations in the United States), some authors today actually describe this as how it will be built in the 21st century.' What do 'this' and 'it' refer to? Someone who does understand it should make it clearer. Fpahl 19:19, 22 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Its clear enough to me. Rather than try to overcome the opprobrium associated with communism, due to mass murder, the gulag, etc. an advocate of what in fact amounts to communism describes the desired social and economic arrangements without labeling them "communism". That said, I wonder if whoever thinks that some authors have done so would give some examples. Fred Bauder 20:27, Sep 22, 2004 (UTC)

• Thanks for the explanation, Fred. I see how the sentence could have been interpreted this way, but the pronouns were too ambiguous. I rephrased it (the sentence ;-). Perhaps you can check that it still means the same to you? (I've deleted the paragraphs of context below; hope that's OK.) Fpahl 21:30, 22 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Canadian New Democratic Party

I've reverted the change that added the Canadian New Democratic Party as a party whose basis is democratic socialism. I looked at their platform, and though I agree with most of it it is far from a socialist platform. In particular, it does not seek to substantially "reform existing state institutions". The sentence in the article is perhaps slightly confusing in that it lists the SPD and Labour Party, but doesn't explicitly say that they were founded on a basis of democratic socialism but have of course strayed far from it. I might change that. (The ambiguity, not the straying ;-) Fpahl 19:18, 23 Sep 2004 (UTC)

I did. Fpahl 19:24, 23 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Hammering & Sickling

Just an aside here: the hammer and sickle on the page should be, IMO, something that is "Russian neutral", that is, not directly relating to the Soviet Union, as it has over the years become a more general symbol for communism. It was recently changed to (I think) a Soviet era stamp. Based on what I said above, I obviously prefer the previous one. I won't change it until there's some discussion here though. Cheers. Yossarian 07:11, Sep 24, 2004 (UTC)

That's fine, I can see your point. I was responding to a request on WP:RP. If you change it, it would be better not to revert to the previous image but rather use the one at Hammer and sickle. -- Solipsist 07:56, 24 Sep 2004 (UTC)

The main fact about the hammer & sickle is that it first represented the union of workers and peasants in the Russian Revolution. Secondarily, it came to stand for the prestige of the CCCP, and then its power in the world too; so it came to be aped and appropriated by parties and groups all over the world, without that understanding -- thus IMO largely losing its vital content, while maintaining the viscerated form (obviously). Many parties recognized this and later on attempted "variations on the theme" (the DDR and north american stalinist parties are exemplars of this).

Any representation of the hammer & sickle in Wikipedia should always be taken in this historical context, shouldn't it? To just have the emblem stand-in for "communism" would be a representational mistake -- right along the lines of the one committed by the above-mentioned non-soviet parties and groups.

Pazouzou 18:52, 26 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Soviet Space Program

Does this seem like Soviet propoganda to anyone? "However, some communist countries did succeed in reaching comparable, or even higher, technological levels than capitalist ones. For example, the Soviet space program was able to far exceed that of the United States in the early years of the space race. The US was only able to respond adequately by moving the development of space technology from private ownership to state ownership." Anyone who knows the history knows the Soviets got their technology by abducting German rocket scientists and otherwise carting away German technology post WWII. To chalk that one up as a "Communist success" is disingenuous. Furthermore, by all accounts the technology was inferior to that of the Americans. At least the Germans who worked on the US space program wanted to work in the United States!

Entirely non-biased responce:

I wouldn't say so. The truth is, both countries used unscrupulous means to acquire former WWII German scientists. The paragraph itself is essentially true: the US did have to socialize (to a certain extent) their space program. Perhaps chalking it up entirely to communist success is somewhat disenguous...but so would saying an American success was entirely on "American know how". They both achieved their goals the same way. And both countries had just as many failures and successes.

And besides, there were Russian and American scientists. So it wasn't simply a success for German scientists either.

Biased responce:

Yeah...abducted...or at least in the same way that the Americans "abducted" their Germans...:

American Agent: "Work for us, or face charges as a war criminal...cause, you know...you ARE."

Russian Agent: "Работайте для нас, или пробы стороны как военныйа преступник..."

German Scientist: "Ja..."

So, is your point that the war criminals that came to America are somehow better than the ones that joined the Soviets? Whether the Soviets abducted or enticed, or the Americans forced or persuaded, both let major war crimnals (whom used forced labour to construct V2's to blitz London) get away with murder.

-- Yossarian 06:47, Sep 28, 2004 (UTC)

Geeze... Yossarian got it exactly right. I'm not used to reading political commentary from people who aren't opinionated and ignorant (even the Rooskie is bang-on)!

Besides agreeing on the above, I want to point out again that the whole article seems almost to have been written in its entirety by non-communists. It will be a long time before this article even approaches competence in its designated topic -- let alone anything approaching objectivity. It needs a complete re-write.

Pazouzou 15:47, 28 Sep 2004 (UTC)

I agree completely. I'm sorry to have to say it, but this article is hopelessly inadequate and slanted. Shorne 00:53, 30 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Ah! Recognition! It feels so good!

...

Uh...anywho, yeah the article is a bit lacking (there's some good stuff though). There was a major thingy going on a little while back to reorganize the communist pages...but it's lost a bit of steam. Take a look at some of the older arguments for info.

Go here for some more info.

-- Yossarian 00:58, Sep 29, 2004 (UTC)

Ya, I got that sense already. I'll check those out sometime. Maybe one of those slow days when pounding a spike into my skull just won't do it for me...

Pazouzou 23:20, 29 Sep 2004 (UTC)

= Factual Error

I was re-reading the article and found this factual error;

The ideas of Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, epitomized by their Communist Manifesto, transformed communism into a revolutionary movement. Marx and Engels claimed communism did not have to occur in isolated communities, but could emerge globally.

Marx and Engels claimed that communism could NOT occur in isolated communities, and ONLY emerge globally. This was one of the arguments against Saint-Simon and Owen laid out in Engels "Socialism: Utopian & (vs.) Scientific". I am going to change this since it is wrong and I can't see the possibility of any real disagreement on this (and am prepared to quote extensively from Marx and Engels if there is). So far, this article is coming along. I don't think it needs a re-write, but people should just wiki the hell out of things they see wrong! -Capone 01:58, 2 Oct 2004 (UTC)

You are right. Please do correct that. Shorne 02:41, 2 Oct 2004 (UTC)

New introduction

Come on, that "new introduction" is anything but acceptable. Totalitarian? Killed a hundred million? This is POV at best, bullshit at worst. Shorne 02:37, 3 Oct 2004 (UTC)

It isn't my place, although I might be able to wing it, to set forth the positive views on this matter. Take a look at White nationalism and the structure of its introduction. First, to the extent possible the positive viewpoint is given; then the negative viewpoint. That's NPOV. Another problem as the article sits now is that there is no mention in the introduction about traditional, religious or utopian communism and institutions. As it sits it is just an introduction to Marxism-Leninism. Fred Bauder 14:47, Oct 3, 2004 (UTC)

I'll have a look at white nationalism later, once I've taken an anti-emetic. I respectfully submit that NPOV is not about positive and negative viewpoints, although those may be appropriate—and they certainly do belong in an article like this one, the subject of which is highly controversial. (It would be wrong to treat communism in a clinical way, as if people didn't have widely differing opinions of it.) But I do not think that the introduction to the article is the place for sound bites on either side. Certainly saying that communism is a totalitarian movement that killed a hundred million in the twentieth century, even if that were not a whopping falsehood, is out of line in the introduction. Shorne 18:57, 3 Oct 2004 (UTC)

I'll try rewriting it today. By the way, don't miss Angela Davis on Book TV, C-Span 2. 12:00 Eastern. Fred Bauder 14:47, Oct 3, 2004 (UTC)

Please consider sorting out the communalist (religious communism) side from the leftist political side a little more clearly. Your introduction does make the distinction, but my opinion is that it is a bit muddy. Most people who look up communism are going to want to know about the political philosophy. My recommendation is redirection, along the lines of the article socialism. (This is not to say that I approve of the choices made in that article, only that I think that the redirects at the top neatly avoid a murky morass of numerous ideologies under the same heading.) Shorne 18:57, 3 Oct 2004 (UTC)

A version of intro than must be distributed over relevant sections

This text is unacceptable, since it uses loaded phraseology, like "pseudoscience", and dubious statements, ("dominated" 20th century). At the same time it contains useful information, missing previously. Mikkalai 20:53, 3 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Communism (in the generic sense, not capitalized) is a theory and system of social and political organization with roots in traditional culture, religious community and utopian socialism. Communist practices include holding of land in common, cooperative living and working arrangements and equitable sharing of economic goods. As transmogrified into Marxism-Leninism by Karl Marx and Vladimir Lenin, and put into practice by Lenin, Leon Trotsky, Joseph Stalin, Mao Zedong, Fidel Castro, Pol Pot and other leaders, Communism (sometimes capitalized) is a totalitarian political movement which dominated much of the history of the 20th century. It is estimated by critics of Marxism-Leninism that deaths during the 20th century due to Communist revolutions, induced famines, and failed social and economic experimentation number about 100 million in addition to tens of millions of man-years spent in the concentration camps of the Gulag.

In theory, communism is a classless society in which all property is owned by the community as a whole and where all people enjoy equal social and economic status. As a political movement, Communism, working through the agency of a highly centralized and disciplined political party, the "vanguard of the proletariat", promised to overthrow capitalism through a workers’ revolution and redistribute the wealth into the hands of the proletariat, or working class. Their program was based on pseudoscientific economic doctrines based on an eccentric philosophical base, dialectical materialism, derived from but "turning on its head" the dialectics of Hegel. Marxists, believe that just as society has evolved from feudalism to capitalism, it will necessarily evolve into socialism and eventually communism.

Historically advocates of scientific socialism viewed Communist revolution as liberation of humanity from the chains imposed by capitalist domination of the economy. In modern times this critique is more likely to be viewed as domination of the world economy by multi-national corporations and by the advance of globalization. Modern Communists usually do not attempt to justify or explain the vagaries of the history of the Communist state but focus on oppression of women, the people of the undeveloped countries of Asia, Africa and Latin America which they may term, "the global south", racial minorities and the working class. Like Marx before them, they advocate liberation, not any specific social or economic arrangement other than racial and gender equality, democracy and socialism expressed in general terms.

Disputed pieces

• "Transmogrified" - loaded and imprecise word
• "totalitarian" - asks for proof
• "dominated" - questionable. Influenced -yes, but dominated, exscuse me.
• Deaths - put them on real culprits - on actual people, rather than on theory. Don't blame a gun.
• "all property is owned by the community as a whole" - plain wrong
• "as a political movement" - factually wrong.
• "pseudoscientific economic doctrines based on an eccentric philosophical base" -- Very argumentative. How about "fucking economic doctrine"?
• Section about modern communists has nothing to do in the intro, at least not in this extent.

-- Mikkalai

I agree with every one of Mikkalai's observations. Shorne 05:37, 4 Oct 2004 (UTC)

GOD! (IN THE GENERAL SENSE! NOT THE PROPER NOUN!)

Sigh...I'm so tired of this page...

I'm seeing a pattern develop here. People who want to condemn communism as some sort of bloodthirsty killing machine (unintentionally or not), and those who don't (whether they lean left or not). It dies down, then it fires right back up. The earlier resolution on the problem was that we keep this page as a purely theoretical description. That seems to have taken a back track...the deaths issue is unimportant in the face of the other, somewhat glaring, problems that have been pointed out here. As much as I disagree with the "Guns don't kill people, people kill people" doctrine (in the NRA context), that's exactly the metaphor for what this is.

-- Yossarian 21:16, Oct 3, 2004 (UTC)

PS: One needs to take SEVERAL antiemetics before looking at the white nationalism page...blech...

Anyone who wants to condemn communism here is out of place, as is anyone who wants to praise communism to the skies. Please remember, people, that this is an encyclopædia article, not an opinion piece.

This page is terribly disorganised. Some of us are planning to create an entire series on communism that will have the potential of addressing the issue in a way that will serve a reader wanting information—not propaganda from any angle. The structure of the pages is still being planned. For now, however, it really isn't helpful for people to insert obviously inflammatory and POV stuff. Shorne 05:37, 4 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Deaths

Unless a death toll appears on the page capitalism, I refuse to allow one to appear here. Shorne 05:37, 4 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Alea iacta est...well put.

-- Yossarian 08:46, Oct 4, 2004 (UTC)

If you feel the content of the capitalism page should be changed please go there and do it. There were a few killed at Ludlow but it is just a grain of sand compared to a juggernaut. Unless you seek endless conflict there is no use trying to cover up the tens of millions of deaths associated with the Communist adventures. Fred Bauder 12:43, Oct 4, 2004 (UTC)

And which "communist adventures" are those, exactly? Let's count them, shall we? There's Stalin, Mao... Pol Pot... and that's about it. Those 3 dictators cover 99% of all the people ever killed by a regime claiming to be communist. Why then, pray tell, do you talk about "murders of communism" when you should be talking about the murders of those 3 very specific communist leaders? When describing the Holocaust, do you usually include it among the "crimes of Germans leaders", or do you categorize it as one of the crimes of a very specific German leader, namely Adolf Hitler? -- Mihnea Tudoreanu 18:54, 4 Oct 2004 (UTC)

I'm not trying to cover anything up. I'm just arguing for a little bit of accuracy and neutrality, which should be uncontroversial. That claim of 100 million dead is utter bullshit. As for capitalism, you'll find one hell of a lot more deaths than you think. Deaths from capitalist-induced starvation alone were on the order of a billion in the twentieth century. And need I remind you that the initiators of both world wars were capitalist powers? Shorne 17:14, 4 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Fred, please don't exaggerate. There are plenty of articles that address the issue of deaths under communist regimes. I also mentioned the deaths in the intro. The only thing I object is putting numbers into a general-purpoose intro. These numbers are contested and tend to grow as the time goes. It is not a good idea to have a permanent dispute in the intro. Intro is a summary. Facts are to be in the respective sections/subarticles. Mikkalai 17:15, 4 Oct 2004 (UTC)

I object to having numbers in there at all. They are not facts; they're propaganda. (Their source, the Black Book of Anticommunist Bullshit, has been widely exposed, even in major capitalist newspapers.) Besides, there is no way for a reader to understand what is meant by the alleged "deaths". Even worse is to claim "murders", which some people (including Fred Bauder) have done. It suggests that Stalin went around chopping heads off one by one. Shorne 17:25, 4 Oct 2004 (UTC)

His preferred method was a bullet in the back of the head and to this day they are discovering mass graves. The Black Book of Communism is indeed interesting and we should probably have an article on it. It was first published in France and was for many French people the first widely read compedium of the crimes of Communism. Our version is just an English translation. I find it accurate and conservative in its claims. Fred Bauder 18:47, Oct 4, 2004 (UTC)

Whose preferred method was a bullet in the back of the head? The images that that brings to mind are the KMT's shooting of communist revolutionaries in the streets and the famous image of a South Vietnamese policeman who shot a communist in the head point blank on camera.

The Black Book of Communism is a mass-market piece of propaganda. Its own authors have been forced to admit such errors as the misplacing of a decimal point, which magically increased the figures by a factor of ten. At least two of the co-authors have accused one of the others of playing creative accounting so as to puff the figures up to the coveted 100-million mark. Again, it's bad science, done from an ideological point of view that encouraged distortions, misrepresentations, and lies. Conveniently, the book fails to mention that even its grossly inflated numbers pale in comparison to the deaths due to capitalism from starvation alone in a single decade.

Have you seed Le Livre Noir du capitalisme? It came out a couple of years ago. I'm eager to get my hands on a copy. Shorne 22:26, 4 Oct 2004 (UTC)

I could not see what a Hindu float, a juggernaut, in a religious ceremony had to do with deaths attributed to Communism. I was able to locate Lublow on the map, but not juggernaut. Figures that deal in the cause of death are seperate from figures that deal with the numbers of actual deaths. While even figures regarding numbers are often wrong, statements attributing a cause are even more remote or abstract, or follow from an already agreed upon method of determination. Most modern states issue death certificates to individuals but at various times all states have also fudged official records to make a political point in some direction, and rarely are censuses made which compare the individually received death certificates to the official records in a given state. History is like wiki, it is not static, but rather a set of facts strung together as a story that changes as the people in each successive generation interperet the past through their different lenses, and derive altered meanings over time. The mythology or the hagiography about Communism and the Soviet Union or China, like Capitalism, Republicanism, or the U.S and England, for instance, is one which academics, journalists, travellers, scholars continue to clash over, hurling facts like bricks at one another - but there are no white flags in sight. - Capone 17:46, 4 Oct 2004 (UTC)

To find the Ludlow Massacre, click on the link, but here's the first paragraph:

The Ludlow Massacre of April 20, 1914 was one of the bloodiest assaults on organized labor in American history. It took place in Ludlow, Colorado (today a ghost town) northwest of Trinidad, Colorado and was the climax of an effort to suppress a strike by twelve thousand Colorado coal miners.

It is not referred to as the "Ludlow Teaparty" in the deprecating way some of you would edit articles on Communism. It sets forth in clear language what was a very bad thing and calls it a "massacre". As to juggernaut, again click on the link and consider this sentence, "An older meaning is for any institution that incites destructive devotion or to which people are carelessly sacrificed."

The point of the comparison is that while at times, in protection of capitalism, or at least capitalism as the rulers saw it, a few people were killed, a few thousand, but compared to the numbers liquidated or starved to death by the Communist adventurers it is a very small amount. Fred Bauder 18:47, Oct 4, 2004 (UTC)

That's why the proper way would be to find statements which are not likely to change over time. If it looks impossible without complete omission of a certain issue, then the POV must be clearly attributable and stated in an emotionless way. If there is a disagreement, it must be discussed.

Take the issue of deaths as an example. During the Russian Civil War, like during any other war, both sides wished to eradicate the opposite side. It is sad, but no wonder. Later Stalin claimed that as the Socialism evolves, the class struggle aggravates. Hence there must be killed more enemies. Looks plausible enough (let's not question Stalin's premise for the moment). But somehow since this moment millions of provable innocents in addition to "legitimate" enemies were killed, and the communist state failed to protect them, which it was supposed to do by the very definition: workers' state failed to protect innocent workers; not one and not two erroneous cases, but the whole witch hunt. Hence the state is held responsible, just like the intro says, by extremely minimalistic criteria: the state failed to serve its declared purpose. Mikkalai 18:09, 4 Oct 2004 (UTC)

I agree with Capone and Mikkalai. Deaths attributable to political activity deserve to be discussed—but in a neutral way. It is, as Capone said, naïve and simplistic to quote "100 million" as if it had been handed down from Heaven on stone tablets. That does not contribute to knowledge; in fact, it gets in the way.

Indeed, I have already proposed that the issue of deaths in socialist countries be addressed. See the talk page for communist ideology.

Part of the problem is that the deaths are counted on only one side. People here recoil in horror when asked to count Hitler's violence or even ongoing mass starvation as deaths caused by capitalism. Another problem is that communist politicians have historically been more forthright about the deaths that their governments have caused. Stalin and Mao, among ohters, took responsibility for many deaths that occurred under their leadership. Have we ever heard capitalist politicians take responsibility for starvation in their own countries, or for the violence that they commit in wars?

Ever quixotic in my search for an honest and fair compromise (would that more people met me halfway), I propose political deaths as a home for all discussion of this sort. Other articles, such as this one, would have a brief cross-reference to political deaths. This strikes me as a sensible way to organise the discussion. What do others think? Shorne 19:09, 4 Oct 2004 (UTC)

The problem is that the so-called "capitalist nations" never formed a single "side" nor shared any specific ideology, nor had a specific system of governance, nor had any single point of historical origin of reaching that "capitalist" stage. There's no ideologue on the part of what you call "capitalist side" that has the similar meaning for capitalists that for example Marx has for Communists. At that point your definition for what the "capitalist side" was is only by saying "everyone who wasn't a communist".

To put it in brief -- we can specifically define which states were under one-party control of Communist parties. We can likewise define which states were part of Hitler's alliance. Your definition of "Capitalist" however would probably group the entire of human history since the prehistorical invention of private property. If it makes you feel any better any talk about "crimes of socialism" would be just as ill-defined as "crimes of capitalism". Socialism, unlike communism, is as vague a concept as capitalism is and just as unspecific. Communism is a specific economic *and* political theory. Nazism is a specific system of ideology and governance. Libertarianism likewise. But "socialism" and "capitalism" are not.Aris Katsaris 19:53, 4 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Capitalism does not cover all of human history from the invention of private property. Ancient Rome and mediaeval Europe, for example, had nothing like private ownership of the means of production, an employment market, a large class of workers paid in wages.

I submit that the countries pursuing communism did not form a monolithic bloc either. Many of them pursued different policies and accused the others of being on the capitalist road. Someone mentioned Pol Pot: well, the Khmer Rouge was so far out that no communists seemed to recognise it as communist. China and the Soviet Union parted ways in 1960. North Korea and Cuba are practically monarchies. And there was a lot of variation diachronically as well. The USSR in 1920, 1950, and 1990 was very different.

In any case, practically the entire world is now under capitalism. Political deaths today can hardly be attributed to any other system. Consider starvation, for example. The annual death toll is in the tens of millions. Yet there is plenty of food to feed everyone, and the capacity to produce more exists. So why are people dying? Strictly because of the prevailing political economy, which keeps food out of mouths. Why should those deaths—say at least ten million per year, so a billion over the course of a century from this one cause alone—not be ascribed to capitalism? Shorne 21:43, 4 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Communist regimes may not have been monolithic but AFAIK they all traced themselves back to Marx and Lenin and their theories. And they all *claimed* themselves Communistic, ofcourse. How would you define "Capitalist" regime to include Hitler, when the Nazists themselves derided capitalism?

As for the deaths from starvation and so forth -- I've seen few people who argue in favour of killing this and that person for the furthering of the capitalist cause. Cruel capitalism may make people to "live and let die" but it hardly ever promotes this killing and extinction as a part of its theory. Followers of Nazism killed and purged for the good of their nation and they said "we are killing the Jews and foreigners for the motherland" -- communists killed and purged for the good of their struggle and said "we are killing the bourgeis for the good of the Revolution". On the other hand, the starvation of people you are talking about however is a result of Capitalistic *indifference*, not of *intent*. If you witness a murder in process and don't lift a finger to help then you may be morally guilty, but that doesn't mean the killing was done by *you*. It doesn't mean it's *attributed* to you. Aris Katsaris 22:06, 4 Oct 2004 (UTC)

The Nazis derided capitalism? But their economy, despite the absurd "socialist" label, was fundamentally capitalist.

So-called communist (properly socialist) governments did not ordinarily kill the bourgeois as such. Hell, they didn't even take away their property for a while—and then they bought it, and paid for it with interest-bearing bonds. (This is called bourgeois right in Marxism—the idea that some class privileges of the bourgeois should be preserved for a time even under socialism.) Rather, the policy towards the bourgeoisie was to integrate it into the proletariat. Note that most of the executions were of people inciting counterrevolution or of members of the Communist Party itself.

As for your moral argument, I agree. Inaction in the face of someone's imminent death does not let one off the hook. So I find it surprising that you seem to absolve the "live and let die" mindset of capitalism of responsibility for death tolls in the ten figures per century. Shorne 22:41, 4 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Fundamentally capitalist? If capitalism is supposed to be about the private ownership of the "means of production", then what would be the meaning of private ownership in the Nazi state, when everyone and everything could be at the control of the Fuhrer? Communists nationalized for the good of the worker class supposedly, Hitlerists nationalized for the good of the "nation". If capitalism is about a worker class *selling* their employment, then wasn't Nazism about *stealing* the labour (and land and lives) of those they considered inferior, or indeed anyone the Nazi elite wanted to kill? I agree with you ofcourse that Nazism wasn't "socialist" either. But extremely capitalistic? No -- an extremely capitalistic political system would have put private property beyond the reach of any national government. *Libertarianism* is an extremely capitalistic political system -- and trust me I'm no libertarian either.

"Most of the executions were of people inciting counterrevolution" That still falls under killing *because* of the ideology, as opposed to deaths of neglect. That capitalism hasn't stopped starvation doesn't mean that capitalism caused it. When you are talking about "absolving responsibility of capitalism", I might just as well speak of "absolving responsibility of Catholic church" -- (Catholic Church hasn't stopped starving in the world) or "absolving responsibility of democratic countries" (democratic countries haven't stopped starving in the world). That's a bit different to the idea of members of the Spanish Inquisition killing *because* of their religion, or to the members of the Communist party killing *because* of their ideology, or to slaveholders killing through the institutions of slavery -- or to Nazis killing because of their nazism. Yes, capitalism hasn't solved all the problems of the world and may have even caused a few of them. But saying "capitalism is to blame" is irrelevant when lack of capitalism wouldn't have solved the problem. No, capitalism is *partly* to blame, in the sense that it didn't solve it. Aris Katsaris 23:21, 4 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Nazism is a sort of militarised capitalism with various other trappings. True, the state played a heavy rôle; but corporations to operate, so long as they got in bed with the Nazi régime. You're right that libertarianism is the most extreme capitalist position.

As for the death tolls, I'm sorry, but starvation is entirely due to the economic system (capitalism) that controls food and other property for an ideological motivation, namely the supremacy of profit. Capitalism could solve the problem if it wanted to, simply by agreeing to take food production out of the realm of profit (or to limit the profit available from it) and distribute an adequate amount of food to everyone in the world. That could be done much the way that free schools are now available to everyone or almost everyone in the developed world. Capitalism has not taken action of this sort, and the most powerful capitalist countries in the world have even had UN resolutions scrapped that would have established adequate nutrition as a fundamental human right. So I do feel that capitalism has blood-soaked hands.

Also, notice that the people bandying these fictitious death tolls about in a simple-minded attempt to discredit communism do attribute every death from starvation to communism. So why shouldn't the same standard be applied to capitalism? Sauce for goose, sauce for gander. The dirty little secret is that all of their inflated, manufactured death tolls for communism together don't come to a tenth of the death toll for capitalism from starvation alone for the same period. Shorne 23:46, 4 Oct 2004 (UTC)

A sort of "militarized capitalism" except that I don't see anything particularly capitalistic about them. The Nazis certainly seem to me to be less capitalistic than modern-day society as they placed private profit below the good of nation. If private property is protected more in modern-day West than in the Nazi regime, doesn't that mean that the Nazis were less capitalistic than us?

"economic system (capitalism) that controls food and other property for an ideological motivation, namely the supremacy of profit" That's not an ideological motivation. Capitalists wanting to make money care about making money -- as long as they are making money they don't care about spreading their ideology. Yes, capitalism controls food and other property for profit. Nothing ideological about it, except when you go to the extreme case of libertarianism, which the modern world currently isn't.

I'm not particularly interested in *specific* numbers of deaths. These can be disputed. But I do definitely object to the moral equivalency of having the *intentional* directed killings and pogroms driven by Communistic ideology to be compared with the faults of capitalistic society that simply doesn't care to offer charity to the poor nations. It's the difference between murder and criminal neglect.

I on my part think that the existence of private property, and certain safeguards against the wholesale violation of such by the state or any other group is required in order to allow people to live in dignity rather than be wholly dependent on the whims of the leading caste (whether that's the Communist Party ruling-class or the Nazi-party ruling-class). You blame starvation on capitalism? Is capitalism also to blame for the North Korea starvation? If the whole world was as commuistic as North Korea how would the starvings be any less? When half the world was communistic, why wasn't the starvation any less either than now when the world is mostly capitalist? Aris Katsaris 00:05, 5 Oct 2004 (UTC)

I'm not interested in a debate on the specifics of Nazi political economy. Not on this page, at least.

Controlling food, land, and other resources amounts to starving people to death. The entire world is under a capitalist system right now, save a tiny number of remote enclaves that have no effect on this discussion. I told you that capitalism could solve the problem if it wanted to. It has the power and the resources to do so. It obviously chooses not to. That's a political decision every bit as much as shooting someone between the eyes.

Go ahead and count up the intentional killings under Stalin or anyone else. How many do you think you'll find? Most of these bullshit numbers that a few propagandists here are citing as if God Herself had whispered them in their ears are for alleged starvation and the like. Well, if communism is guilty for non-existent or exaggerated famines, capitalism is certainly guilty for the same.

Starvation did go down in the communist countries—dramatically. As for the change to capitalism, the life expectancy in China was higher thirty-odd years ago, under Mao, than it is today; and the United Nations, hardly a bastion of Leninist revolution, has expressed alarm at the scandalous drop in life expectancy for Russian men in the past decade or so. Capitalist India still hasn't achieved the life expectancy enjoyed in China in 1975—and India was well ahead of China in 1949, when the PRC was established.

I don't know enough about the causes of the famine in North Korea, and I doubt whether you know much more. I do know that the government is non-communist. The very fact that rule passed from father to son should tell you something. Hereditary monarchy doesn't mix with Marxism. (Incidentally, in the 1970s, North Korea offered to donate food to South Korea, which

was suffering from famine at the time.) Shorne 00:37, 5 Oct 2004 (UTC)

"It obviously chooses not to. " Unlike in communist countries, there's no single "capitalist party" in capitalistic countries that can choose or not choose to do something. Unlike in nazism there's no all-powerful leader that can command resources to be given at will by others. Unlike in racism there's no specific ideology. Capitalism is all about the million different decisions of a million different people without a single authority that can choose or not choose.

A very good argument can be made that capitalism is in fact a plutocracy. The vast majority of the people have no control over the means of production and how they are used. A tiny minority of the rich holds more wealth than everyone else combined. To claim that such immense concentrations of wealth will not lead to parallel concentrations of power is willful ignorance. The fact that capitalist regimes don't have a unifying ideology is absolutely irrelevant. The Roman Empire didn't have an ideology. Ghenghis Khan didn't have an ideology. The Czars didn't have an ideology. None of the colonial powers who slaughtered millions of innocent natives had any ideology. And the many brutal military dictatorships of the 20th century didn't have any ideologies either. Lack of a unifying ideology does not prevent murder and genocide. Also, just because a ruling oligarchy does not flaunt itself in plain sight, that doesn't mean it doesn't exist. -- Mihnea Tudoreanu 11:05, 5 Oct 2004 (UTC)

I agree to you that lack of a unifying idelogoy does not prevent murder and genocide. If you are to argue with me that capitalism *lacks* elements that would help it prevent murder or genocide, then I'll agree with you. That's why democracy is also required for a healthy society, as well as certain social structures to prevent the worst of abuses -- pure capitalism is definitely not enough to create such a healthy society. But ofcourse everything you say about the ruling oligarchy and the concentration of power happens even more in the case of Communist countries. Who do you think was personally more powerful in his own country, Stalin in USSR or modern-day George W. Bush? And which party do you think has more power within its own country, the Republicans in USA or the Communist Party in Cuba or China? Aris Katsaris 18:38, 5 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Mihnea Tudoreanu is quite right. If socialism is the dictatorship of the proletariat, capitalism is the dictatorship of the bourgeoisie. The only difference is that capitalism doesn't admit it. Shorne 16:41, 5 Oct 2004 (UTC)

But I do not accept the claim that "socialism" is the dictatorship of the proletariat. What you call socialism is simply the dictatorship of a Communist party that *claims* to be acting on behalf of the proletariat -- the vast majority of people *still* have no control over the means of production and how they are used, and a tiny minority of the party elite holds more power than everyone else combined to an even greater extent than happens in capitalist countries. The difference between Communist regimes and liberal capitalist ones are that over here I can insult capitalism and even proclaim myself a communist and nobody will arrest me. I very much doubt that I could insult Stalin in the Soviet Union and still live to tell the tale. Aris Katsaris 18:38, 5 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Y're lucky McCarthy is out of office for quite some time now. And he had way less power than Stalin. Mikkalai 19:02, 5 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Starvation went down in communist countries? As opposed to when, as opposed to the middle of World War II? It seems to me that during the 20th century starvation went much further down in democratic countries.

As for me, I don't need famines to consider Communism guilty -- above all else Soviet, Chinese and Cuban Communisms and the variations in all their satellite states are guilty firstmost for the slavery of mind they imposed on their citizens, where they weren't allowed to speak their minds, or even to leave their nationwide prisons. Where dissent was rewarded by jail in the best of cases and death in the worst of them. Because the Party knew best.

As for hereditary monarchy, I agree that the Communistic system is more about creating an elite like the Catholic Church priesthood whose membership is not due to hereditary but rather ideological criteria. At that point it's all about how much power the cardinals have and how much the pope. North Korea simply went a bit further towards the "Pope" direction, aka the class system there is slightly more pointed in the top... Aris Katsaris 01:17, 5 Oct 2004 (UTC)

I wish to expand on the point I made further above. People who talk about the "crimes/murders of communist regimes" are almost always making a gross over-generalization on the basis of the crimes comitted by a couple of very specific communist leaders. The Deadly Duo (as I like to call it) of Stalin and Mao account for over 90% of the crimes attributed to communism. It is misleading to talk about the "crimes of communism" and ignore the fact that the overwhelming majority of them are in fact the crimes of Stalin and Mao. Stalin and Mao were in fact the only communist leaders who ever killed more than 2 million people. A very distant third place is held by Pol Pot, with around 2 million victims. An equally distant fouth place could probably go to Kim Il-Sung, with around 500,000. And that's it. All the other dozens of communist leaders have death tolls no greater than those of many US presidents (when they have them at all). Thus, instead of talking about the "crimes of communism" in general, wouldn't it be more accurate to talk about the crimes of Stalin and Mao, with a footnote mentioning Pol Pot and Kim Il-Sung?

To make an analogy, talking about "the crimes of communism" without mentioning the fact that the overwhelming majority of them were comitted by just two communists is like talking about the "crimes of German leaders" without mentioning that the vast majority of them were comitted by a single German leader, Adolf Hitler. -- Mihnea Tudoreanu 18:54, 4 Oct 2004 (UTC)

I think I've already hinted why deaths in communist states are so special. The reason is an extreme paradox: the theory promices happiness, but the implementation turns out to bring deaths. And, Mihnea, you are somewhat mistaken about Stalin and Mao. Their death toll is dominating only because their population is dominating. Your name makes me think about Romania and of Conducator Nicolae Ceausescu. Albania, Yugoslavia, GDR, Vietnam, Cuba may show you plenty of skeletons as well. Once again: don't tell me about Pinochet; he didn't promise happiness to all working people before shooting spree. Mikkalai 20:54, 4 Oct 2004 (UTC)

On the contrary, if you measure deaths by percentage of population (rather than absolute numbers), communists have been even less bloody than I explained above. Please take a look at this page in the Historical Atlas of the 20th century and scroll down to "Proportionality". In the top 25 atrocities of the 20th century (measured by percentage of deaths out of the total population), only two were caused by communists. And those are the regimes of Pol Pot and Stalin. Mao doesn't even make it anywhere near the top 25, because when compared to the total population of China, his death toll is a drop in the ocean. -- Mihnea Tudoreanu 10:40, 5 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Interesting citation. Thanks.

Similarly, we can note that the United States and a few of its lap-dogs have killed more than 6% of Iraq's population—mostly children, too—in the past fourteen years for the sake of oil. Shorne 16:41, 5 Oct 2004 (UTC)

That's ludicrous Mikkalai, as Pinochet most certainly did. Find a state which has a legitimating ideology that does NOT claim to be for the benefit of those governed and I'll show you where you are making things up. Disagreements with them aside, I have never been shown evidence that Stalin or Mao oversaw millions of executions. Did millions in Russia starve to death in the 1930's? I've seen many conflicting numbers from a variety of sources, but one thing they always seem to agree on is that the starvation was not caused by the collectivization in itself, but by the comfortable and wealthy peasants who sabotaged their own equiptment and killed off their own livestock rather than turn it over to the 'backstabbing' soviet regime, as the soviet government turned towards industrialization during the scissors crisis of 1930. Capone 22:20, 4 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Quite so, Capone. The kulaks provoked the famine through destruction and refusal to work. Then they cried foul when the Soviet Union (or "Stalin", for those who insist on pinning all the blame on one person) booted their asses off the land and brought in people who were willing to work it. It is a monstrous lie to claim that collectivisation failed in the USSR. Shorne 22:57, 4 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Oh for the...

Can't you people find a nice little cafe to discuss this crap? The answer is so friggin' obvious, and everyone's too interested in their statistics. When does it end? Almost every world leader has blood on their hands! Communist, facist, capitalist, secular, religious...blood is the standard measure. Does it matter if they killed a million or just one? No. Because they'd still be dead. If Stalin killed a million, and Pinochet killed 100 000, who's more evil? WHO? I demand an answer!

Right.

They're both just as despicable. Ideologies have never been the point with these villians. They're simply convenient, or non-existant. It'll be a cold day in hell before I ever call Stalin a real "socialist" or a "communist". Quibiling over numbers is what Holocaust deniers do! Not encyclopaediasts. I give up. I give up I give up I give up.

-- Yossarian 22:27, Oct 4, 2004 (UTC)

I hope you won't give up. The fact is that we live in a militarised world. A political system predicated on floating into power on satin cushions, without a drop of blood spilt, is a political system that will never see the light of day. Slavery was built on violence. Capitalism was built on violence. Socialism, too, requires a violent revolution, according to its adherents, who don't deny that for a moment. (Mao famously said "A revolution is not a dinner party".) So lumping all political leaders together as "despicable" just because they all have more or less blood on their hands is simple naïveté. Sure, we could all invent wonderful political systems if we were allowed to choose initial conditions different from those that prevail in 2004. We can't, however. Any political movement that requires toppling a state that is armed to the teeth is going to get some blood on its hands before it succeeds, for you can bet your ass that the existing governments will not go quietly. Shorne 22:50, 4 Oct 2004 (UTC)

I think you missed my point slightly. I never said all political leaders are despicible (I understand how it could sound that way)...just Stalin and Pinochet as a matter of fact (in the example. I was perhaps someowhat bold in saying almost all were bloody handed). But I have no misconceptions about power or humanity in general. Power comes freom the barrel of a gun, as one bastard once said. I just find that the discussion is trivializing the numbers of deaths caused by any regime for trivial reasons (e.g. the condemnation of communism/capitalism, etc.). Anyway, I merely give up on the communism page. It's a conflict that I don't need right now. Maybe when the deaths issue goes away for a long period of time, but not now. Enjoy the fight ladies and gentlemen.

-- Yossarian 23:13, Oct 4, 2004 (UTC)

Well Yossarian, you will be missed because I know you have contributed a good amount to this and other pages. But in case you cheat and decide to look over here before a long period of time as gone by, please make a mental note to remember that Shorne and myself generally agreed with you that it was futile to come up with a number or a reference to a number as in 'thousands' or 'millions'. Capone 23:41, 4 Oct 2004 (UTC)

I shall.

-- Yossarian 01:26, Oct 5, 2004 (UTC)

I've also largely abandoned this discussion. It's a big waste of time to go over the same old topics again and again with closed-minded people who are not serious about evaluating the data. Oh, they claim to be serious: they trot out numbers from a sensationalist book and dump them on Wikipedia as if they were the incontrovertible truth. When challenged, however, they retreat to the position of subjective opinions. Awfully boring. I'd rather spend my time writing the article history of bacteriological pests that attack purple-spotted Lithuanian rutabagas. Shorne 01:39, 5 Oct 2004 (UTC)

I am of the opinion that giving up in frustration equals surrendering to the enemy. Please, please let us finish what we started and make a final effort to give the Communism page a respectable (and objective, or at least NPOV) shape. -- Mihnea Tudoreanu 11:05, 5 Oct 2004 (UTC)

You both are impatient like all true communists. Be prepared to challege new and new generations of opponents that join wikipedia every day or give up communism. Fortunately, Stalin's way of killing the opponents is not an option. Mikkalai 15:23, 5 Oct 2004 (UTC)

I'm not giving up on the communism page; I'm giving up (for the most part) on this discussion. If that means that I'm impatient, so be it. There are people here who don't do much other than post claims of quintillions of corpses floating down the Volga and revert entire batches of changes that don't suit their prejudices. I just don't see the point in holding a discussion whose only outcome will be a lot of wasted time.

I will, of course, continue to talk with reasonable people, whatever their political positions may be. Shorne 16:41, 5 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Recent Changes

1.) removed allegations of mass murder and genocide from the introductary paragraph. 2.) added notes about the relationship to communism and early christianity and pre-papal christian beliefs. 3.)added a word to clarify that Lenin was a 20th century person by in large. 4.) Noted that the Chicago school and other similar schools are the source of naming the self-described democratic socialist republics as "Communist". 5.) minimized language or explanations about big C vs. little c communism because they were confusing and didn't help the article 6.) Added that Marx's view of a future communist society was very futuristic and could be said to be a fore runner to the futurist school. 7.) Pointed out that communism, socialism, and anarchism were synonyms until the middle of the 19th century 8.) Noted basic similarity between anarcho-communism and marxian communism 9.) Added that medieval Europe under the catholic influence held common property as a law of god. 10.) added some influential proto-communist rationalists after Rousseau 11.) Noted that hippies today sometimes live on communes.

Capone 01:15, 5 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Thanks for these changes. It's nice to see some constructive work for a change instead of the juvenile reverting of articles and writing of propaganda (see communist state for the latest example).

I did some editing. More remains, but I'm tired. I'll attend to it later. Shorne 01:32, 5 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Here you go: http://www.etext.org/Politics/MIM/agitation/blackbook/index.html Fred Bauder 02:48, Oct 5, 2004 (UTC)

Another flavor: http://www.socialistaction.ca/fi-doc_lnoir.html Fred Bauder 02:48, Oct 5, 2004 (UTC)

Second example of the other flavor: http://www.wsws.org/polemics/1998/jul1998/blck-j15.shtml

Reviews on Amazon.com Fred Bauder 03:15, Oct 5, 2004 (UTC)

Thanks for these links. I haven't yet read all of the abundant material—I'll check it out later—, but it is clear that a wide range of opinion on the accuracy and validity of those claims exists. Shorne 03:47, 5 Oct 2004 (UTC)

The intro paragraph didn't contain "allegations of mass murder and genocide". Please tell me what statement removed from intro are false and why. Mikkalai 03:32, 5 Oct 2004 (UTC)

You removed the following statements.

1. Notion of communism is a matter of controversy today.
2. Theory of communism promised conflict-free society
3. Actions of most communist states resulted in deaths of millions of their own population.

Please explain why they are wrong. Mikkalai 03:37, 5 Oct 2004 (UTC)

They are different statements which are wrong for different reasons. Firstly, the matter of form: criticisms of a subject belongs under the heading "criticisms" or something similar, not in the introductary paragraph where the theoretical reader has not even read what communism "is" before being bombarded with what "its" failures or contradictions are. Perhaps we are using different English languages. I said allegation, the article said " . . .communism have been accused of the deaths of millions of their own population." Accused = Alleged? That sounds about right. Do you have a thesaurus handy? I do. Its bartelbys online, and it says accuse = allege. I removed it for the right reason, as I will again, this nonsense based on "Accusation". IT IS IN THE FIRST PARAGRAPH. What are you saying exactly?

The theory of communism does not promise a conflict-free society. It simply says that society would be free of class conflict. If you are looking for contradictions, you will find none because there hasn't been a society yet which claimed to have acheived communism, were free of problems, or that they were even somehow close.

There is no proof that "Actions", or inactions for that matter, resulted in "deaths". Not on any massive scale, or any scale not seen before in every history of almost every land for all time. This is purely anti-communist rubbish, empty assertions; allegations and accusations.

Secondly, one cannot attribute an "idea" to death. Communism does not kill. These words on this page will not crawl into your covers at night and nab you or do unspeakable things. People do these things. Banners flew over their heads while they did this, sometimes it was the Soviet flag, other times the U.S, French, Japanese, or British flags. Sometimes under the Crucifix of the Christians, sometimes under the flag of the U.N!! There isn't sufficient evidence that a disproportionate number of people died under the so-called communist banner than under any other banner.

So, until I see you've made an honest effort to go to the Christianity entry, the Capitalism entry, the Gold entry, the Currency entry, the Fascism entry, the Judaism entry, the Nationalism entry, the Islam entry, etc., and fight to insert in the OPENING paragraph talk about the millions or billions that have died "in its name" or "because of it", your efforts here are always going to seem wildly disingenuous.

Is communism controversial? So is Madonna and George Bush, even the theory of natural selection is controversial. What is the point here of noting it? If it deserves the mention of being controversial, the theoretical reader deserves the clarity or mental space of having this mentioned under the heading "controversy" or along with "criticisms". Again, certainly not in the first paragraph.

CITE your sources. That's the main problem with your facts. I grew up in the United States and I've heard a million times, maybe less, maybe more, that Communism is a menace that has caused millions of people to have died, maybe even worse than Hitler. There is truth to that saying about a lie repeated a thousand times becomes a truth. Upon investigation into the facts, the historical record, primary sources, this talk of millions of deaths is false. What are your primary sources for the wild allegation that millions perished due to communism, and what is your methodology of determination? What criteria have you established to determine which deaths, one by one, were caused by willfull orders or neglegent planning on the one hand, vs. the circumstances which face all lands or nations: invasion, famine, disease, or plain ol' bad luck?

Of course we can find records of people dying. People are dying every day, every hour, every minute, and every second. What caused their deaths? Many things. Now if some charlatan wants to take death records from a particular nation or region which claimed a certain ideology, and then narrow this down to a particular time frame, and then begin to attribute the causes of deaths in ways which are politically usefull to them, I cannot stop them. But if its on Wiki, I can.

Even if you think what I'm saying is all wrong, you cannot deny that you are placing a criticism of a subject in its introduction which is un-wiki. Place your criticisms in a criticisms section at the end of the article where they belong, and then be prepared to be edited mercilessly. Capone 06:10, 5 Oct 2004 (UTC)

So I removed the critical allegations from the first paragraph and placed them in a new section, section 8, so pile it all up there, like how they normally do things in other articles on wiki. Capone 06:17, 5 Oct 2004 (UTC)

I agree with the single serious argument in the above essay: criticism must be postponed. The rest of your text is either inapplicable or off-mark. You seem to delete without reading. The phrase didn't attribute death to "idea". The phrase attributed deaths to "implementation by states". Millions of innocent deaths are documented. Proofs and evidences are in other articles. The fact that Bush causes controversy doesn't make the statement "communism calls controversy" false. Your phrase I disliked "allegations of mass murder and genocide" is polemic exaggeration of what was actually written. Please learn to carry out discussions without demagogic tricks. One of them is long rants to get the opponent bored. Please list you arguments one by one, e.g., like I did, and then substantiate them. Your biography facts about living in America is interesting, but irrelevant. Good luck. Mikkalai 15:15, 5 Oct 2004 (UTC)

I agree that the controversy over communism should be handled better. It seems that communism is being singled out for this attention, as Capone pointed out, when nothing negative is said in the article on Christianity, other than some brief comments about persecution that are commingled with comments about the persecution of Christians by others. Why should that two-thousand-year-long bloodfest get such dainty treatment if communism is accused of millions of deaths in the very first paragraph of its own article? Shorne 17:03, 5 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Mikkalia, you are being tricky. You want me to write point by point? Fine . . .

1. It is you who nitpicked over my paraphrasing of what you said. I agree that I misunderstood or mistated the part about communist ideas vs. communist governments killing people.
2. You should agree that "killing millions of own people" = "genocide and mass murder". You should also agree that "allege" = "accuse". This is basic english and I suggested use of a thesaurus. Am I twisting your words? Who else thinks so?
3. If you are bored about what i am free to write in the discussion page, then do not read it, but I will edit mercilessly any propaganda posing as encyclopedic knowledge which appears in the actual article and it may be usefull to you to understand why people are editing in such ways.
4. You simply restated your assertion that Communist states have killed millions of their own people. You said "Actions". This is conviniently vague. Are you talking about executions, murders, or bad policy which accidently led to shorter life expectancy averages?
5. If I say Santa Claus exists, and you say he does not, who does the burden of proof fall on? I cannot prove that Communist states did not kill millions of their own people. If they didn't, there would be no proof to show. So the burden of proof here is on you.

-Capone 19:05, 5 Oct 2004 (UTC)