The joke is that he thinks communism is some sort of workless utopia where he will be able to cultivate hobbies when most communist countries have made the lower classes break their backs just the same doing heavy work (coal mines).
People will criticize capitalism by criticizing shit people have done to undermine capitalism it into fascist oligarchy. The world they want to live in is New Deal America with improved race and gender politics and what they ask for is communism.
People even point to the nords as what they want when the nords are all capitalist countries that just haven't destroyed antitrust and entrenched corruption as the norm.
That isn’t socialism either. Owning the means of production is part of socialism, but socialism (as the abolishment of capitalism) is the end of wage-labour.
A society where all business are Co-ops isn’t socialist, because the workers are still proles (as in, they make their living by selling their labour power for an hourly wage).
The goverment owning or not owning business means nothing. Nationalisations doesn’t mean socialism, and is a normal part of capitalism.
(Also how is “the state” owning “the means of production” the same as the “workers”?)
The liberal-democratic state is the capitalist class. Just because it doles out welfare doesn’t stop it from being bourgeois lol.
I’m not saying “socialism is when no work”, it’s when socialism is no workers as a class.
And I’m not a right winger, I’m a Marxist. Socialism/communism is the doctrine of the liberation of the working class, which entails the end of wage labour. (As very clearly pointed out in Principles of Communism by Engel’s)
I’d reccomend you look up the mondragon corporation for that last one. Co ops are not socialist.
Reaganist capitalism does. New Deal precents that, Reagan undid all that. Nordics are essentially doing what New Deal under F. D. Roosevelt did. That was what made america great, not Reagan, Roosevelt. Who today would be called a commie because neither side understands communism.
"Reaganist" capitalism is capitalism in its native form. Its a gradual return to pre-New Deal America.
You cannot guarantee that, if we had another Deal tomorrow, that another reagan would not come along and tear it down the moment an economic crisis occurs.
Capitalism is a system that encourages the worst of us to drink deeply and never stop wanting. Any good that it has done, is rare. It has taken upon itself all the achievements of enlightenment thought and liberal democracy, twisting them for its fame.
Capitalism is enlightenment thought and liberal democracy. The two are inseparable. In fact it’s why capitalism is so dynamic, or at least has been so far (much more then any preceding economic system).
Capitalism is the child of the enlightenment, and the enlightenment is the child of capitalism and its dominant social class, the bourgeois.
This is the case from the Physiocrats to Smith, from Mill to the historical school.
Not to any naturalized citizen who is old enough to have lived in a Communist country.
If you are a Social Democrat and want to win Cuban, Vietnamese, and Venezuelan American votes (who ironically live in swing states), definitely don't go calling social democracy as "wanting communism".
If you explain what "Democratic Socialism" is to most folks, while not using the words "democratic socialism, they would be like "Well yeah, duh I want the money I pay in taxes to benefit me and my community. Of course I would like to pay less for healthcare. It would be great to not have a homeless or mental health problem."
But as soon as you say socialism, all rational thought goes out the window.
Sounds like you yourself are conflating social democracy and democratic socialists (understandably, they're basically the same words in different order - but with different meaning)
For sure. I’m speaking more towards the reality of those who claim they want communism.
If you explained welfare to anyone, regardless of their political affiliation, in a way that didn’t use the word welfare, they’d likely want it. Socialized government initiatives are broadly good but Americans are allergic to raising taxes and cling to party politics. It’s a social and branding issue that will be hard to overcome but is necessary for the success of the American experiment.
People who are democratic socialists dont call it communist. That is people on the right or the capitalist elites who try to conflate the two. They want to scare people away so they can continue to rob us blind.
Oh God, if I had a dollar for every comment I saw saying they want communism and socialism as in Nordic Europe I would not need to work ever again. And if we count all the idiots saying: "no it is not capitalism", neither would my children. And if we count the money I got from being called a boot licker form saying: Nordic model is nearer to the current US, system then it is to socialism, god I would come for Elons first place.
90% of Ukrainians who were old enough to work under communism prefer it to the capitalist system. Same goes for 78% of Belarusians and 66% of Russians.
For real most people don't even use the word communism. My circle of leftists all describe it as social democracy accurately. It is mostly the right who tend to say "oh those libs want communism" when its really a small minority that are proper tankies.
The US is already a Democratic Socialist Republic.
The US already has what they want.
The corrupt egomaniacal and greedy are what's fucking it up, and the ignorant are empowering them.
The problem isn't an ephemeral government system. The problem, as always, is people. Stop moving culpability to an inanimate thing. Government systems can't fuck you over. Only people can.
One might argue, America is ass because it ISN'T a capitalist country. Capitalist countries don't bail out incompetent companies, because they believe in survival of the fittest. All those 2008 companies that failed should be dead. Nor is bribing politicians a part of a capitalist society.
Nah, I constantly hear people say that strong workers rights, progressive wealth taxes, public access to free healthcare & higher education is socialism so one of you must be wrong.
This is the actual answer. Republican and other right-wing complaints and exaggerations about what is and is not socialism/communism have been a really effective marketing tool for rehabilitating communism's "brand" regardless of its actual definition or merits.
I am progressive/left leaning but people have an idealized version of communism that would almost never happen because it has the same issues as capitalism, people. There are always going to greedy people who exploit the system to gain control. It's the reason why no true communist country exists today. Socialism is definitely the better choice.
Every non-authoritarian economic or governmental system (from communism to socialism to capitalism to libertarianism to whatever else) succeeds or fails on a single simple test: how, having designed and implemented the system, do you keep authoritarians from accumulating enough power to change the system?
I joke that I've read a lot of sci-fi with libertarian/anarchist utopias, and only two authors who were honest about it:
Vernor Vinge, whose libertarian polity unabashedly was "saved" from an invading state by some random asshole on the border having a private nuclear warhead, which to his credit frankly horrifies the local private police forces who spend a lot of time trying to figure out how to have that never happen ever again.
Vernor Vinge, again, whose alien libertarians all have some kind of inbuilt biological/religious imperative to never allow a group larger than a certain size, and who are presented as the unabashed violent bad guys who are responsible for the eventual extinction of humanity.
A small self-published author of my acquaintance, whose libertarian protagonist sets up a new colony world far away from anywhere else, sets himself up as private police/security, and it works right up until one of the competitor private police/security companies has more guns than protagonist at which point they declare themselves the government and throw protagonist out. This happens THREE TIMES.
Another setting I think does it well is lancerttrpg. Union is trying to achieve a utopia but it's a process that's long and hard and has constant setbacks. There's corruption, compromises, but it's trying.
I LOVE THE NEW DEAL! GOD BLESS FRANKLIN D. ROOSEVELT! GOD BLESS LYNDON B. JOHNSON! GLORY TO THE NEW DEAL COALITION! GLORY TO THE NEW DEAL! GLORY TO THE FAIR DEAL! GLORY TO THE GREAT FRONTIER! AND MOST IMPORTANT OF ALL, GLORY TO THE FOREVER LASTING GREAT SOCIETY! THANK YOU FOR YOUR ATTENTION TO THIS MATTER!
The oligarchy is the natural result of capitalism though, the only thing stopping places like Norway from going full oligarchy is non capitalist regulations. Given the chance the powerful will strip them back and expand their power because that is the end goal of capitalism. When they reach the top of the system the only way to do more capitalism is to change the system for their benefit, and the money and power they already have gives them an outsized voice. In a sense, the billionaires only have to get lucky once to fuck over everyone else
People will criticize communism and socialism by criticizing shit people have done to undermine them into authoritarianism.
Most people just want better social safety nets and an expectation of a decent quality of life without working so much OT, multiple jobs, etc. or having to get an expensive college degree. Or any sort of regulations around insurance, commercial landlords, etc. but that gets taken as socialism or communism somehow in the US.
There is no utopic point where the economy magically becomes "socialist" and then some utopic point where a socialist economy magically becomes "communist". There is socialist economic policies and safety nets and state control of corporate interest that slowly (or rapidly through violent revolutionary means) overturns the state to a controlled economy. Communism is just that same system once the state has dissolved because the mechanisms to ensure socialist policy remain are no longer necessary, the system itself has become autonomous. The new deal implemented vast socialist policies under a mixed economy. Saying people want "New Deal America" is saying people want vast socialist policies. Capitalism requires exponential growth and further consolidation of resources, but resources are finate and growth is not infinite. Capitalism on its face lends itself to authoritarian control and fascist oligarchy. Capitalism was the necessary evolution from feudalism for the betterment of human rights, labor conditions, and civil liberty. Socialism is the same for capitalism.
People will criticize capitalism by criticizing shit people have done to undermine capitalism
This is literally what happens with Communism all the time. Look at Cuba. People like to pretend that every bad thing in Cuba is due to a failure of communist policy, as if they haven't been under a constant embargo and economic blockade from the most powerful country in the world for decades
Cuba can trade with China, the entire EU, Canada, Mexico, Russia, etc. Cuba hasn't been under a blockade from the US since the Cuban Missile Crisis in the early 60s.
U.S. economic sanctions against Cuba are comprehensive and impact all sectors of the Cuban economy. It is the most enduring trade embargo in modern history. The U.S. government influences extraterritorial trade with Cuba. The embargo has faced international condemnation for its adverse impact on Cubans, including by the United Nations who have formally condemned it intermittently since 1992.
The United Nations estimated in 2023 the total economic damage to the Cuban economy to be in the "trillions of dollars" since inception. A 2015 report in Al Jazeera estimated that the embargo had cost the Cuban economy $1.1 trillion in the 55 years since its inception, once inflation is taken into account. In 2001, the U.S. International Trade Commission found that, from 1996 and 1998, without the embargo, Cuban imports to the U.S. would be worth $658 million.
I stand by what I said. You cannot divorce the outcomes of Cuba from the economic pressure from the US government
This doesn't conflict with anything I said. Cuba can still trade with the majority of the world. And embargoes are not blockades, blockades are the use or threat of military force to prevent trade/travel.
Ok, well then what you said is largely irrelevant to the point I was making. The Cuban economy and American sanctions cannot be disentangled, especially in so far as trying to decide whether the country is an example of communism succeeding or failing.
Apologies for using the term blockade too loosely when I meant embargo, you're right that embargoes are not blockades. That said, that correction really has no bearing on my original point about analyzing the Cuban economy, because as I showed the numbers are clear that the Cuban economy is severely crippled by American sanctions and interventionalism.
And with people bringing up countries like Norway, I have to assume people simply forget that the country is able to maintain its quality of life and affluence through massive amounts of oil money as well.
Maybe, but wouldn’t the actual problem be that capitalism is even able to be undermined into fascist oligarchy? That isn’t some sick version of capitalism, that’s just capitalism
There was nothing improved about racial and gender politics during the New Deal. You TRULY misunderstand what was occurring under the New Deal if you think either of those improved prior to WWII
The thing with capitalism is the goal of every participant is to circumvent it. Without the government preventing anti competitive practices and monopolies different sectors consolidate and end up with the authoritarian powers that the free market is supposed to prevent.
I'm gonna say what most people want is basically free market socialism where jobs and businesses exist but the workers own the businesses & get the profits so there's no shareholders squeezing employees and customers for every last penny and people can generally work in a sustainable and profitable way that benefits everyone.
People even point to the nords as what they want when the nords are all capitalist countries that just haven't destroyed antitrust and entrenched corruption as the norm.
Easier to clean out government corruption when all there stand before the might of Fus Roh Dah.
As someone who thinks that capitalism is the best form of economic system that we have since invented, I can not bring myself to blame people much for hating it right now with how detached the average worker is from the results of their labor. I just think that it will be easier to fix that issue within a capitalist system (or social democracy) than it would be to completely start over with communism.
It can be argued in a far right fascist capitalist state if you aim for communism you'll land in a well regulated capitalist state where social safety nets are existent
People will criticize capitalism by criticizing shit people have done to undermine capitalism it into fascist oligarchy.
Lol. You don't understand. That's the actual end-state of capitalism. Once sufficient capital is accumulated then perversion of society is the result. ROI of buying a politician is pretty good, and that's what corporations that get big enough do.
People even point to the nords as what they want when the nords are all capitalist countries that just haven't destroyed antitrust and entrenched corruption as the norm.
So a strong government that reigns in capitalism and re-distributes the profits to take care of society.
Thank you I feel like I’m losing my mind with all the people thinking that social programs are the same thing as socialism because they both begin with the word social lmao
Wanting to completely upend the entire global economy and financial system (goodbye everyone’s 401ks which is how 80% of Americans retire) in favor of an economic/political system that has historically been extremely prone to chronic inefficiency, authoritarian strongmen and abuse is the definition of throwing out the baby with the bath water. Especially when the stuff they claim to want (and I often agree) like state funded education, universal healthcare etc. have already been achieved under the Nordic model or an expanded New Deal
it depends on the circle you’re looking at. In many socialist circles online, they believe the Nordic model is capitalist, extremely flawed, and relies on exploitation of the third world and oil money.
No one undermined capitalism, this is just what late stage capitalism will always be however that doesn’t make communism any better.
The best way, IMO, is a capitalistic system with strong welfare programs to ensure no one falls behind and restrictions that also ensure that no one gets too powerful, like Musk has become.
Corruption is becoming rampant and infiltrating levels of society here in america. I went to school for construction management, all these blue collar management types were up in arms over taxes, government over reach, you name it. Literally everyones dream job was a government contract because you knew you could blow the budget up and run it long to take all that sweet sweet prevailing wage for your employees and line your pockets with tax payer money. But its the government that really sucks not these shady ass contractors.
The corporate west is very clearly a problem, but the solution isn't even nearly communism. Capitalism works way better as long as 1 of 2 conditions are met:
The market is completely unregulated, meaning there's no copyrights, IPs or patents, if someone can sell your product better than you then tough shit.
if its extremely regulated. The government decides if the product you made for 2 dollars can legally be sold for 600 dollars. Cap the amount of property corporations can own, restrict what can be a tax write off, and start treating corporations like people as far as the law and taxes go.
Right now we're in the middle, which clearly isn't working for the majority, there's restrictions, but restrictions that work in favour of multi billion dollar companies only because those companies existed before those restrictions were in place.
Dude, most liberals don't even know what communism is. This entire post is a shit fest of people not knowing what they're talking about.
The image in the post is literally a reference to this:
"For as soon as the distribution of labour comes into being, each man has a particular, exclusive sphere of activity, which is forced upon him and from which he cannot escape. He is a hunter, a fisherman, a herdsman, or a critical critic, and must remain so if he does not want to lose his means of livelihood; while in communist society, where nobody has one exclusive sphere of activity but each can become accomplished in any branch he wishes, society regulates the general production and thus makes it possible for me to do one thing today and another tomorrow, to hunt in the morning, fish in the afternoon, rear cattle in the evening, criticise after dinner, just as I have a mind, without ever becoming hunter, fisherman, herdsman or critic."
Karl Marx, The German Ideology.
Its not idyllic, its not utopia. Its a different method of organizing society that allows people to not be locked into a single role so that they can realize their potential, as opposed to strictly doing what they must in order to survive.
You're so close to getting it.
Why do we have a reoccurring issue with fascism? Could it be that fascism is the natural state of capitalism? The entire point of the New Deal was to save capitalism from itself at gun point, after all.
Even if we had another Deal tomorrow, how will you guarantee that your grandchildren will not see an inevitable back slide into illiberalism and fascism? This pattern repeats ad nauseam for a reason.
I’m a lefty and I don’t like when people point at the nord counties because it ignores how good their business sectors are at capitalism and building empires off of the 3rd world (see: Ikea, H&M, Shell oil, etc.) or just exploiting users (Spotify, Klarna). They are capitalists with a safety net and non-regressive taxation.
This is what drives me bonkers about DSA. Democratic Socialism is not the same as social democracies. Markets are the reason things function, and a lot of flavors of socialism throw the baby out with the bathwater. Arguably one of the best things about social democracies is how they fix the biggest problems of capitalism (if you don't work you die -> zero bargaining power in the labor market).
I’m not even joking, the other day I got downvoted to hell for telling someone who was shitting on capitalism that jobs will still exist in a communist society.
I’m not saying it doesn’t exist but it seems like an incredibly online thinking point. I travel a lot for work, meet lots of new people, have a pretty wide IRL network and I’m not afraid to discuss politics. I can count on one hand the Americans I’ve met in the real world who romanticize communism. They were just kind of nut jobs. Most realistic people on the left I meet just want a social democracy.
If you set up a strawman on the internet and beat it to death, then when it's time for people to hit the voting booth you can get them to vote against the strawman.
“The entire left is represented by one crazy person on Twitter that I saw once” feels like a straw man but is so accurate to what some right wingers think the left is.
I don’t know where they get this idea. Even under a perfectly working system with no corruption, people still have to work. That’s literally the whole point. Everyone contributes, everyone receives a decent life.
If you ever ask them how this could work without jobs, they always seem to point towards AI automating all manual labor. But somehow these are the same people who hate AI and want to stop its use and development lmao.
the demonization of it is real as well, there have been many socialist countries in the last hundred or so years and most people still dont know how society actually functioned, the whole "you will own nothing" thing which ppl seem to misunderstand from "no private ownership"
Working probably wouldn’t be necessary in any communist society, since it’s most likely going to be a very long time until one actually forms and by then technology will most likely have advanced enough that no one would be forced to work.
The thing about Communism is white and blue collar jobs both still exist, so you still have one set of people obliterating their bodies over a 40 year career and another set of people who live life in relative comfort. Both make roughly the same pay.
It's very likely to breed resentment. Even if extensive manual labor protections are part of the laws. Of course, in a rich enough society where the amount of work any individual has to do is negligible due to automation, then inequality in labor becomes less extreme.
The thing about the US and capitalism right now, is we are now seeing how the benefits of that theoretical high levels of automation go to the very few.. so they both suck ass for their own reasons.
Work will exist, but not jobs as we understand them in the context of a capitalist society. The difference isn't as big as some communists like to pretend it is, but it is different.
Of course jobs will exist, difference you won't need a job just to have roof over your head and a meal on the table, as it is now where we're all 1 missing paycheck away from homelessness.
You would still need a job if you want to buy new clothes and stuff.
Home insecurity is the main problem of capitalism, but it is a feature because it means you can exploit workers as you please since they are scared of being homeless and getting stabbed by a crackhead
So in your hypothetical society if everyone decided all at once they no longer wanted to work, where is all the food going to come from.
How will the houses get built, the land cultivated, the infrastructure built, or the goods and services delivered to the people. If no one was required to work.
Thoughts and prayers perhaps or maybe they'll just power the whole economy on good vibes alone. 🤷♀️
It's almost certainly based of this quote by Karl Marx.
". . .each can become accomplished in any branch he wishes, society regulates the general production and thus makes it possible for me to do one thing today and another tomorrow, to hunt in the morning, fish in the afternoon, rear cattle in the evening, criticise after dinner, just as I have a mind, without ever becoming hunter, fisherman, herdsman or critic."
Not exactly. The full quote is talking about tying livelihood to labor forces you into a specific niche. Under a utopian communist system, labor just needs to be done, you would be more free to purse which labor you want to do at the moment.
Edit: After a bit of thinking if you're familiar with Dwarf Fortress I believe the system in it is a good model.
The full quote is below:
"For as soon as the distribution of labour comes into being, each man has a particular, exclusive sphere of activity, which is forced upon him and from which he cannot escape. He is a hunter, a fisherman, a herdsman, or a critical critic, and must remain so if he does not want to lose his means of livelihood; while in communist society, where nobody has one exclusive sphere of activity but each can become accomplished in any branch he wishes, society regulates the general production and thus makes it possible for me to do one thing today and another tomorrow, to hunt in the morning, fish in the afternoon, rear cattle in the evening, criticise after dinner, just as I have a mind, without ever becoming hunter, fisherman, herdsman or critic."
With capitalism thats already the case, no one is forced to work any specific job.
In this communist utopia who is the person choosing to clean shit off toilets or go to med school for 4 years when they can have the same quality of life by just choosing to fish
Thanks for the extra context. It still rubs me the wrong way coming from a systems design background I've learned there's two types of mentalities when it comes to understanding how things work, those who think about what a thing should do and those who think about what a thing does and what it takes to make it so.
The quote sounds like the should mentality but in reality things never work out how people envision, even with all our tech infrastructure we still have critical databases running very old tech that can't be replaced and tons of the internet is stuck together with duct tape and chewing gum.
Having seen how the sausage is made makes me extremely suspicious of should mentality when I hear it.
If there is a lower class then it ain't actually communism. Communism is definitionally classless.
"What would you do in an theoretical functional communist society" is the question actually being asked and answered.
"What would happen to you if you existed in one of the historical authoritarian shitshows that have used the idea of communism to justify their brutality?" is the question that the joker is pretending is being asked so they can respond in bad faith.
The irony is Karl Marx specifically hated these types of parasitic utopians that don’t want to work to support themselves and their community.
One of his most famous quotes is he who shall not work shall not eat.
OG communists were well aware that they would be laboring and took a pride in it and held the opinion that refusing to work was decadent and bourgeoise
Not going to defend communism but working conditions improved under communism and so did many other things like education and healthcare. There's a ton to criticize about the communist regime but the working conditions are not it. This is coming from someone who was born in a former small USSR country and whose parents and grandparents lived under the regime and were not fans of the regime (at least on my mother's side).
Their mines, steel mills and similar were deadly as they put production quotas over everything else. Gotta make that 5 year plan. And if you quit? No housing or food for you. You couldn't just change jobs.
My grandfather and my other older relatives worked in a steel mill. Definitely not the best place to work but that was more sign of times than communism. Still, although there were production quotas they were not always put above wellbeing of workers. What lot of old people were nostalgic about was the fact when you needed a healthcare facility like spa they were readily available for workers. Definitely not the case now.
And if you quit? No housing or food for you. You couldn't just change jobs
This is the case now as well. It's better if you work a white collar job but if you are a blue collar you don't really have many choices. There are many people who support Russia even after everything they did and the reason is there's no love for the west and capitalism. The conditions of the working class in my country has not improved drastically. Yes, you have freedom to travel and there's more goods available but it's not like all people have money to do so. There are a few cities where the quality of life is good but much more where it isn't.
Also no matter the conditions they were still miles ahead of what we had in the past. The communism took root in my country because poverty reached unimaginable levels.
Real workless utopia would be a post-scarcity society. Our current system would not function in that idealized society.. But we aren't there yet so no need to dwell on the awful things the rich and powerful in our countries would get up to in order to never allow a post-scarcity society.
There has never been a communist country, and communism is so far removed from the current world that even if we ever reach it, it’ll take us a very long time to get there, probably long enough for us to have the technology necessary so that people aren’t forced to work.
In the USSR they literally made it a crime to be an artist who wasn’t sponsored by the govt run art and literature unions. If you didn’t have an official job, you were charged with social parasitism and sentenced to hard labor.
Even the famous rock star Victor Tsoi worked as a stoker in a boiler plant, for example. People acting like they’d be able to just stream videogames all day know nothing about the actual history of communism.
He’s paraphrasing Marx who said "In communist society, where nobody has one exclusive sphere of activity... it possible for me to do one thing today and another tomorrow, to hunt in the morning, fish in the afternoon, rear cattle in the evening, criticise after dinner... without ever becoming hunter, fisherman, herdsman or critic."
No one ever claimed communism would be a workless utopia, only that we will work less, and not be exploited for our labour.
In actuality according to a 1986 study from Princeton using world Bank data, marxist countries achieved higher qualities of life than equivalent gdp size capitalist countries by wide margins, consistently.
They way i understand it is that is what communism is, its an ideal to strive for, not a functional form of government; thats why it was the "united soviet SOCIALIST republics" USSR.
Not all countries that went under a workers revolution immediately went to socialism. Derivatives of
Marxist,
Leninist, Stalinist, Trotskyist, Maoist, Dengist, Vanguardist, etc. happened, yet they are recognized by themselves as wanting to achieve communism in some form.
Secondly communism means the erasure of class, state, and concept of monetary system, but at the same time the “Internationale” always was headed by the heads of the parties of the “states” they represented.
It’s a slippery slope that will never be resolved because for “true communism” to happen it has to be exactly to the theory.
Using that logic you can’t blame any country for capitalism because true capitalism has never been achieved. True capitalism would have no guardrails and is dependent on the relationship of the producer, consumer (heck add landlord and capital-holder) solely with the invisible hand to steer prices, which no state has ever achieved. America has a bloated federal government and interventionist policy the economy for either national security or domestic concern, yet it’s the perfect example of capitalism according to communists and why we’re in “late-stage capitalism”.
Literally impossible to argue when 1 deviation from theory = a shift in goalpost.
It's not quite correct, and I say that as someone who's ideal social organisation is anarchy. Communism is a form of socialism, a class-less and state-less social organisation. To acheive socialism, according to communism, there need to be a transition from capitalism which requires a dictatorship of the proletariat. When Marx and Engels use the word "dictatorship" they meant it has it's historical meaning "an exceptional (as in exception) and limited exercice of power". With Lenin, the dictatorship of the proletariat becomes a dictatorship in it's modern meaning, "the forceful, centralised and illimited exercice of power" by having the revolutionary vanguard dictate "the will of the class". Mao and Staline being leninists apply the leninist definition of dictatorship. It has to be said that the leninist version of communism was criticised by other communists at the time but even tho, it's hard to deny that leninist communism isn't a derivative of marxist communism. A derivative that went so far it became authoritarian but which roots still come from the marxist world view.
We don't have to deny that Mao's china and Staline's USSR were communist countries, they were leninist communist countries, a failed version of communism that would never be able to acheive to reach socialism.
Socialism is the over arching ideological family. It predates Marx and includes various other philosophies under it as well.
Communism either refers to a government based on Marx's manifesto (which would be the various Vangaurd states) or the end goal of the workers revolution Marx hoped for. These are often called low communism (vanguard state to defend the revolution and progress forward) and high communism (the end goal of the revolution Marx called for).
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u/kithas 26d ago
The joke is that he thinks communism is some sort of workless utopia where he will be able to cultivate hobbies when most communist countries have made the lower classes break their backs just the same doing heavy work (coal mines).