Matvei Bronstein: Theorical physicist. Pioneer of quantum gravity. Arrested, accused of fictional “terroristic” activity and shot in 1938
Lev Shubnikov: Experimental physicist. Accused on false charges. Executed
Adrian Piotrovsky: Russian dramaturge. Accused on false charges of treason. Executed.
Nikolai Bukharin: Leader of the Communist revolution. Member of the Politburo. Falsely accused of treason. Executed.
General Alexander Egorov: Marshal of the Soviet Union. Commander of the Red Army Southern Front. Member of the Central Committee of the Communist Party. Arrested, accused on false charges, executed.
General Mikhail Tukhachevsky Supreme Marshal of the Soviet Union. Nicknamed the Red Napoleon. Arrested, accused on fake charges. Executed.
Grigory Zinoviev: Chairman of the Communist International Movement. Member of the Soviet Politburo. Accused of treason and executed.
Even the secret police themselves were not safe:
Genrikh Yagoda : Right-hand of Joseph Stalin. Head of the NKD Secret Police. He spied on everyone in Russia and jailed thousands of innocents. Yagoda was arrested and executed.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genrikh_Yagoda
Nikolai Yezhov : Appointed head of the NKD Secret Police after the death of Yagoda. Arrested on fake charges, executed.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nikolai_Yezhov
Everybody was absolutely terrified during this period. At least 600 000 people were killed and over 100 000 people were deported to Gulags in Siberia.
Today, Russian schools no longer teach what Joseph Stalin did. Many young russians actually believe that Stalin was a great patriot.
This is part of an effort by Vladimir Putin to rehabilitate him:
https://www.themoscowtimes.com/2025/05/21/stalin-is-making-a-comeback-in-russia-heres-why-a89155
i’d like to point out that communism is an economic system whereas democracy is a social one, they are not incompatible concepts….
just because Stalin wasn’t a very communist regime but was brutally authoritarian and is widely criticized as “what communism is like”.
I would personally prefer a Mutualist system.
Communism is very much a social system. Implying economics don’t have a huge impact on society would be the opposite of Marxism.
Communism is a political and economic ideology whose goal is the creation of a communist society, the pseudoscientifically postulated utopia of a stateless, classless, moneyless, post-scarcity society. Communist ideology is like the Christianity of politics & economics that keeps promising the 2nd coming of Christ: they insist it’ll happen someday inevitably. No possible way Marx was wrong.
Colloquially, communism refers to a communist state (also known as a Marxist–Leninist state): a political system/government consisting of a socialist state following Marxist–Leninist political philosophy with a dictatorial ruling class that promises to achieve a communist society.
Democracy is a political system/government in which political power is vested in the people or the population of a state. Colloquially, democracy refers to liberal democracy, also called Western-style democracy, or substantive democracy: democracy following ideas of liberal political philosophy.
So, colloquially, communism refers to a political & economic system whereas democracy refers to a political system.
As a political system, the communist state is totalitarian, the most extreme authoritarianism:
Whereas an authoritarian regime is primarily concerned with political power rather than changing the world & human nature (they will grant society a certain degree of liberty as long as that power is uncontested), totalitarianism aims for more. A totalitarian government is more concerned with changing the world & human nature to fulfill an ideology: it seeks to completely control the thoughts & actions of its citizens through such tactics as
All of this is entirely compatible with Marxist-Leninism.
Liberalism, however, is fundamentally incompatible with authoritarianism. It holds that governments exist for the people & authority is legitimate only when it protects inalienable/fundamental/inherent rights & liberties of individuals. The people have an inherent right to obtain a government with legitimate authority, and when their government lacks or loses legitimacy, the people have a right & duty replace or change that government until it obtains legitimacy.
The “political” aspect of communism stems directly from the desire to radically alter the economic system. It is not tied, however, to the particular political order.
Coming from the same very Wikipedia article you cite on communism:
So, communism, just as capitalism and socialism, can be combined with all sorts of governance types. It can be authoritarian (and so can be capitalism - look at fascism to see an example), and it can be democratic (early Soviets) or even libertarian (anarcho-communism). You can build a totalitarian communist hellhole, and a totalitarian capitalist one; same in reverse.
Now, an argument can actually be made that capitalism is inherently undemocratic. As your ability to exercise rights is heavily tied to your wealth (think of regular worker suing a billionaire, or all the lobbying, or corruption scandals involving the wealthiest and the way they slip out of them like nothing ever happened), people can be and commonly are silenced. Moreover, if you have money, nothing stops you from financing the media to translate your message. This way, important political messages are drowned in favor of what the rich want to translate, and certain (rather corrupt) voices are heavily amplified over others.
By extension, liberalism, even in the most ideal of its forms, is deeply flawed when it comes to a true democracy.
Finally, most communists (including Marx, since you mention him) realize that the communist society is at least very far off from the current state of affairs. This is why socialism exists as a transitory state, an economic system that grants a lot of benefits of communism (worker’s rights, a social state, socially owned industry) while keeping the monetary incentives in the economy. The absolute majority of communists support this transition and welcome a socialist state.
an argument easily disproven by pointing to the US for the last few decades.
State terrorism is a contradiction in terms. Legally, terrorism is violence carried out by a group that is not recognized as a state internationally. States cannot do terrorism, the term exists to protect their monopoly on legal violence. George Washington was a terrorist until the British empire recognized and began doing business with the constitutional United States. We see a similar change occurring with Taliban members and the present government of Afghanistan.
More importantly, though. You claim liberal democracy is fundamentally incompatible with authoritarianism, yet if we dig into the present and recent past of the United States, we find policies that match the list you have provided.
The Lavender Scare and Hoover’s FBI, the Red Scare and COINTELPRO, the police response to Kent State anti-war protests in 1970, the police response Columbia’s anti-genocide protests last year, the ongoing existence of privately run labor camps and prison farms.
this isn’t wikipedia, put your bot away
whatever 🙄
lol, okay clanker
Communism under a dictatorship is a paradox. The people own and control nothing. The leader and their chosen circle own and control everything. That is neither communism nor socialism and it is not possible for either to exist in any authoritarian context.
Well, the problem is that to get to the utopia called Communism were everybody is equal, a Society has to first go through the Dictatorship Of The Proletariat after the Workers Seize The Means Of Production and, curiously (or maybe not so curiously if one understands at least a bit of Human Nature, especially that of the kind of people who seek power) none of the nations which went into the Dictatorship Of The Proletariat (i.e. all the ones which call or called themselves “Communist”) ever actually reached Communism and they all got stuck in Dictatorial regimes (and I believe in not a single one of those is the Proletariat actually in charge: for example in China Labour Unions are illegal),
So whilst it is indeed not possible for Communism to exist in an authoritarian context, according to Marxism-Leninism to get to Communism one must first go through an authoritarian context and eventually from there reach Communism, hence why all those nations that tried to reach Communism never got past the authoritarian stage that precedes Communist.
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Ahh… please tell me more about this human nature which is incompatible with communism while microplastics flows in your veins.
Re-read my post.
I was not making any human nature claims about Communism, I was making them about what happens when a dictatorial system is created, no matter how good the original intentions stated as the reason to create it.
The viability or not of actual Communism (as in, a classless system were everybody is equal) is a whole different subject. My point is entirely around the good old “Power corrupts, absolute power corrupts absolutely” effect and how that tends to turns supposedly transitional dictatorial stages into something permanent.
I like the “moneyless” part of the definition, aka if you have a currency you’re not communist. Which, to be fair, they didn’t call themselves as a country.
But he wasn’t criticizing communism, or advocating for capitalism. He was criticizing a dictator and saying he prefers democracy.
Unless you think communism can’t exist outside of a brutal dictatorship.
I think communism can’t exist in a brutal dictatorship
China would like to disagree.
China is not communist. Communism entails a classless society. China has social classes. And by definition any dictatorship has a ruler class.
The CCP would like to disagree.
However, Marx (and most other communist philosophers) would agree, however.
Per Marxism-Leninism the Dictatorship Of The Proletariat is a necessary step on the way to Communism, not the actual Communism.
So whilst Communism cannot exist in a dictatorship, to get there one must go through a dictatorship and invariably nations that do so get stuck at the dictatorship stage and never reach Communism whilst calling themselves “Communist” as part of the propaganda that tries and maintain public support and misportray criticism of the regime as being “criticism of Communism” and “criticism of the Proletariat” (kinda like the Zionists, an even more evil regime, misportray criticism of their regime as criticism of those they claim to represent - the Jewish People) to keep the dictatorial structures going supposedly until Communism is reached, but as it’s never reached, in practice for as long as possible.
In all this propaganda swamp around it, most people not knowing about those theories from anywhere but some political propaganda or other, think Communism is what China has or the Soviet Union had even though that very ideology says those countries are not and never were at the Communism stage and at best are on the path to Communism.
No.A communist society is stateless and classless. If there is a dictatorship, even a dictatorship of the proletariat, it is by definition not communist, and no educated Marxist would argue otherwise. However, we do have another term for the transition state between capitalism and communism where it is possible to have dictatorships - Socialism. (And Leninists would argue that a dictatorship of the proletariat is indeed the preferable state of affairs for any socialist state trying to survive in a global capitalist hegemony).Edit: I initially misread the comment I was replying to.
That’s literally what I was saying/implying, so I’m not sure “no” is a particularly valid response. I think you misread.
The comment chain went like this:
Oh you’re totally right. My bad. 🙏
literally the opposite of that
Then why bring communism into a critique of a dictator concerning his methods of control?
because it’s Stalin, former leader of the USSR…
commonly used as an example of why communism is so bad.
you’re really confused about that?
And yet, here this person is, not incorrectly using Stalin to say communism is bad. He is criticizing Stalin on his merits, or lack thereof, and not using one person to disparage communism.
You are one tying Stalin’s crimes to communism.
Stalin tied himself to communism as much as possible, all critics of communism tie Stalin to communism as much as possible.
think reeeeeLly hard about how that might be a relevant point to be had.
also lemmy is chock full of tankies tying stalin to communism but pretending like he was super good and all of the bad things he did were western propaganda
That’s the same “logic” as claiming that all critics of the Nazis are really trying to speak ill of people of Germanic Ancestry or that all critics of Zionism are anti-semites.
Just because those evil regimes tied themselves to those groups or ideologies doesn’t mean that critics of the regime are actually trying to speak ill of the groups or ideologies those evil regimes linked themselves to.
In fact the strategy of misportraying criticism of the regime as being criticism of the group that regime claims to represent, is a common propaganda trick of the most evil of regimes.
my point is that stalin didn’t represent communism, as is widely claimed
not sure what “logic” you used to get to that…
many people do claim that all criticism of israel is just antisemitism, nobody claims that criticism of nazis is a criticism of the german people.
some people have claimed that socialism, which is part of the nazi acronym, is bad because nazis are bad… but that’s pretty rare, so not worth noting when talking about them.
Yes, those tankies are twisted, bring unable to support communism without making excuses for a brutal dictator.
So surely you must appreciate someone capable of criticizing that brutal dictator without smearing communism in the process, right?
Why would you see a conversation about a brutal dictator and jump in to talk about how he was a communist? Don’t you think it might be people like you that encourage tankies to reflexively disagree with any criticism of Stalin?
If you can’t have a conversation about Stalin’s crimes without someone erroneously bringing communism into it maybe that’s why frustrated communists often defend the indefensible.
what a lame troll
no i’m not, i also don’t care about arguing with someone this dense
Well, have a nice day then. I genuinely hope you find something you do care about today.
certainly not you arguing that i said something i didn’t, and then that i shouldn’t say something
It is the actually opposite of that. Socioeconomic factors are the main force of politics. Politics are not limited with the vote box. rather i,t affects all of the people who are the part of society. Within communism there would be no need for democracy. Indirect democracy also creates a ruling class. I would prefer individuals collective decision more than a bureaucrat’s decision that i voted.
How would you determine what the individuals collectively decide?
Talking with each other at the peoples local council not going to a ballot box to elect some stupid bastad to make decisions for them. I DO NOT CONSENT someone to have my all will. An example can enlight this. I vote for the opposite party as an lgbt+ individual but they are not mentioning my daily life problems instead they are making populism with the religion i do not believe.
You may say it is also a democracy by its defination and you are not wrong but the classical democracy is tyrant of the mass. I want the mass to be knitted for the minority. Just because we are the less should not mean that our opinions matter less. But under the classical democracy it is. Under the classical democracy homophobes are the majority and lgbt+ people are the minority.
You’re describing Direct Democracy vs Representative Democracy. Direct Democracy is what we also saw in places like Athens or ancient Greece, where all of the individuals came together and voted collectively on making decisions.
Representative Democracy is what we have in the US today with elected officials.
Direct Democracy is a lot more difficult to implement unless countries become smaller imo, although in the digital age it could be made more possible. Plus there’s the matter of maintaining a militia, although maybe we just expand the current version of the UN’s military budget in that case.
I feel that under Direct Democracy you would still have the issue of bigots outnumbering you in certain areas but not so in others.
The issue with the US’ representative system is that we artificially capped the amount of seats for the House of Representatives and even the Senate so that land has more power than people. If the House was uncapped Federally, and the even the Senate, then people living in Blue/densely populated states would have more fair representation.
I know it is more like comparing direct democracy and representative democracy but i also do have some anarchist, individualist opinions/beliefs. So i am not very certain about calling anarchy as direct democracy. tho i believe democracy under anarchy which is without hierarchy can be used as tool to decide and argue about something.
I am not from usa i am from turkey. English is my second language.
I’m not certain how you would classify that either. When I hear the word anarchy I think more ‘Wild West’ or ‘outlaw country’.
I’m pessimistic about good coming from anarchy in the long-run. To me it sounds like disorganized bands of communities. Without some sort of organizing or structure then I feel it makes it much more difficult to deal with natural disasters, famines, or antagonists.
I feel that in the case of Turkey I don’t know enough about the specifics of your country to comment on ways it could be improved politically to bring about good governance. I feel it’s still possible in my country, but from what I have heard Turkey leans more conservatively.
anarchy is always used by the right wing to describe chaos and destruction but it is not.
Anarchy is not “disorganization” It is organization without hierarchy. No one is greater than anyone. No one is a leader.
It sounds like you would reject a system where one unelected, unaccountable person or class of people ruling through force could decide on a whim to take away the rights of LGBT+ people, or any other minority, and instead prefer a system where all people have an equal voice and a method for that voice to be heard and counted.
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i feel the same as the person you’re replying to. i think our issue is that the opinion of non-queer person holds as much weight as that of a queer person’s. we don’t want equality, we want equity and being treated as the experts on our own lives and needs. a cis person shouldn’t get to dictate my medical care just because 51% of the population voted to deprive me of it. this is why I don’t trust in democracy
No one is asking you to trust it, just to choose it.
Strip away all the labels and theory and you’re left with two basic choices. One where the method of change is persuasion, and one where the method of change is bloody revolution, over and over and over without end.
As much as it might rankle you, and me, to accept having to convince a majority to allow us to live our lives as we damn well please, if I was given the opportunity to appoint a dictator, or dictatorial class, that would remake society exactly as I wanted, I wouldn’t do it. Because who would succeed them, and once you have given that power to a class of people, deposing them is a lot harder, and bloodier, than persuading a few percent of your neighbors.
I’m an anarchist, I don’t despise democracy because I love dictators but because I want tiranny to go away. it’s not a black and white choice between guillotining everyone and installing a dictator, that’s a made-up dichotomy by status quo theoreticians.
i wouldn’t have to persuade anyone if I lived in a community where the police were kicked out like a Zapatista town. who would even be there to enforce the transphobic law? the transphobic community members would have to dirty their own hands instead of deputizing a cop to get rid of me. and in those cases, everyone being trained in armed self-defense kicks in
Yep.
Communism and socialism in itself isn’t that problematic an economic system. Unless of course you belong to the few select brands of freeloaders who’ve successfully managed to sell to the general population that without you, everything would collapse (looking at you, landlords and billionaires and stock market speculators).
The problem is that the economic part can’t work without an evenly matched societal system - and for people to bypass their immediate greed reaction of the usual “why should the result of my work go to others who didn’t do that work” BS, as seeing far ahead to realise that pooling resources in such manner will benefit everyone, and when the community thrives, so does the individual. For that, one needs proper education, which is usually the antithesis of a capitalist system (a capitalist system will inherently only allow one to learn a limited set of facts, and will systematically ridicule those who dare step outside those limits).
And herein lies the second problem. Socialism and communism could be great for the average people, but the average people have been misled and lied to and been brainwashed for so long, they need to be forcibly broken out of that bubble. And the only way to force that is through a revolution, and authoritarian enforcement of the socioeconomic system.
Now the problem with that is… it’s incredibly easy for a malicious actor to then infiltrate the authoritarian system, and push its leaders to do counterproductive things. Add on top of that the constant CIA meddling, and you get your run of the mill authoritarian “communist” (in name only) paranoid leader who rules with an iron fist. The intention might’ve been good, but the execution was starkly against the very people the revolution was supposed to help. Repeat it a few times and now the whole world is afraid of the economic system, not authoritarianism.
Then continue by throwing in some brainwashed tankies who literally suck up to the authoritarian regimes, spreading BS about how those are “true communism”, just so average people don’t even consider learning about it because the term becomes synonymous with authoritarians and their bootlickers.
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That word “only” seems too pessimistic and unjustified, and your point relies too heavily on it.
well that’s absurd, and exactly why the tankies are shilling so hard
Pooling resources is how car insurance works.
It’s part of how car insurance works. It also works by underwriters and adjusters being paid to do everything they can to keep from paying out claims.
And the value it provides is enough to prop up the entire car insurance industry with incredibly inflated salaries at the top, and pay for a good portion of the damage caused by car accidents plus a fuckload of attorneys paid trying to avoid the rest of the damage.
Communism inherently couples both the economy and the government.
In theory, capitalism can be decoupled since it mostly depends on laissez-faire governance. Communism inherently requires a planned economy and centralized control of such.
There is theoretically nothing stopping said leaders of a communist regime from being elected through a democratic process. But much like democracies tend to favor capitalism and (lower case) libertarian ideals, communism tends to lend itself to dictatorships because… you have a centralized control of all aspects of society.