Is communism as bad as people say

I was a staunch communist in my early twenties, I then started to see it as no more than state capitalism. When the mines were nationalised in England, I read an article where the miners had high hopes of a real change but of course other than working conditions improving, nothing really changed. The same happened when British Leyland came into being, to the average worker it was just the same.

I've liked the idea of real socialism, I saw a documentary of a large company in Spain that was run on those principals. When you joined the company you were loaned the money to buy shares, the management were elected & it was run successfully.

The communist slogan " from each according to his means, to each according to his needs" is all very well but what if I had a different idea of what these were than the people who decided.

I remember the Labour MP Dennis Healy being accused of being a young communist, he replied that he also used to believe in Father Christmas !

It's not even a question of human nature: a communist system cannot efficiently respond to changes in supply and demand. That's it's inherent weakness - something even more problematic than it's incompatibility with human nature.

It was one of the Pro communist posters that brought up Stalin actually.

1. This isn't necessarily true. There were plenty people who weren't members of the party in either Nazi Germany or the USSR. In fact, the vast majority of Germans weren't members of the Nazi party and got on perfectly well. The party in both nations certainly had absolute control over everything, this is correct. But membership of the party wasn't a necessary requirement in either country and non-membership didn't particularly affect those people. Bad mouthing the party, however, or active resistance would find one in hot water very swiftly and often did. Party organisations such as the Reichsarbeitsdienst or Hitler Jugend in Germany or something like the Komsomols in Russia were a part of people's lives for sure. But this isn't the same as actual party membership which, in the end, mattered little to the parties in question because they were totalitarian dictatorships that had no real political opposition.
2. Distrust builds over time. But that's something that occurs with most, if not all, governmental types. Without a doubt that distrust built to great proportion in both Germany and Russia when the scales fell from the eyes of the people, as it were. Those who were more attuned obviously discovered the problems manifesting in both Hitler's Germany and Stalinist Russia earlier. But, for most, the realisation that all was not what it was supposed to be happened far too late to do anything about it. And in the case of both Germany and Russia, there is also the war to take into account. Resisting a government, even if it wasn't a dictatorship, is next to impossible when a nation is embroiled in a war, especially a war where the actual life of the nation is at stake which was the case for both Germany and Russia in WWII.
3. Propaganda wasn't just a tool of the totalitarians. In Britain, news was very heavily sanctioned by the government too, with specific individuals assigned to mould the view of the population. Appointees weren't put in charge of the Ministry of Information for their sense of fairness. They were put there to disseminate the government view. Even after the war and up until the 60's, the British Government had a very heavy hand when it came to censorship. While there was certainly more "freedom of the press" in the west, it's a mistake to think that propaganda was the purview only in the likes of Germany and Russia. Likewise, symbolic regalia wasn't limited to those countries either. No country on the planet uses its flag more than the US, for instance (this is still true today) and Britain is certainly not shy when it comes to the use of its own symbols either.

Similarly all of Africa is ultra capitalist, yet many are paddling to center-left leaning Europe.

Yeah communism was so great everyone, bar of course the higher up communist part members, wanted to fook out.

Ever hear of the Berlin wall or the Iron curtain ?

And was all the advancements made, it wasn't much of an advancement for the millions of peasants that died of starvation in Ukraine or the hundreds of thousands of Estonians, Lativans, Lithuanians, chechens, Tatars, the kulaks who perished during the forced deportations.

And these were happening before and after the Great Patriotic War so don't try and blame the Germans.

Yeah they were in space but they went bust, they just couldn't compete any longer.

And whilst they were striving to go into space people had fook all.

You waited years to get a half built Lada FFS.

Oh and your talk that the millions dead was all propaganda just reads like one of those loons who are holocaust deniers.

BTW you talk about literacy, what use is it when you can't read what you want, write what you want, say what you want ?

You are probably one of the best adverts for the continous forcing of history education in our school systems.

Actually The Baltic states are interesting.

I remember being in museum in Taillinn in early 2000s.

There was something unusual in their treatment of history, reminded me of how France and some other countries appeared to have selective amnesia when it came to WWII.

The Estonians had info about early days with Hanseatic League, Swedes, Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth, Russian Empire up to foundation of their state, then about independent state, about Soviet invasion in 1940, about Germans arriving in 1941. Then there was nothing really until Soviets reappearing in 1944 and all that went with that especially in 40s, 50s and then up to independence in 90s.

They made big thing about Soviet atrocities in first invasion and when they arrived back in 44, but fook all about what Germans got up to.

No mention of fact that around 10,000 jews were killed in Estonia.

Granted most of them weren't Estonian as they had very small Jewish population and The Soviets had already deported chunk of them in 1940.

Everyone is always aware of the Germans place in the Holocaust, but they didn't do it without local support or their Allies like the Romanians who were adept at carrying out mass murders nearly as bad as the Germans themselves.

...again more bullsh1t, these ideologies believe that all humans are 'rational' and spend their time 'rationally expecting', again, our property markets continually debunk these beliefs, causing a positive feedback loop in regards pricing, once again, as demand increases, the 'rationally expecting' humans increase their involvement in these markets, and use their resources to bid up prices, particularly by using their access to 'credit' to do so.... by increasing the money supply to these markets, again, primarily increasing the credit supply, this in turn causes prices to continually rise, which in turn causes the 'rationally expecting' humans to panic, which in turn causes a rise in demand...... and on and on and on..... welcome to the real world! oh and you wont find any of that in your neoclassical economics books!

oh ffs, where do you folks get off! my statements and comments are actually supported by respected sources, including respected academics, non academics, and institutions, including central banks!

the main reasons why our property markets are a train wreck is that we have moved towards a more financialised economy, whereby the primary drivers become major sectors such as the fire sectors(finance, insurance and real estate), whos main objectives are to 'maximize utility', 'maximize shareholder value' i.e. to maximise profits etc. when such objectives and goals are created, this in turn causes positive and negative feedback loops to be created, including a positive price feedback.

our shortage of supply was in fact recognized at the high of the previous crash, from respected sources, their advise, get building, and fast, particularly in the dublin region, our response, lets get busy stopping! prices crashed, but demand was still there, and has been growing since. now we have a seriously under supplied market, and prices are sky rocketing! again, demand for housing actually never fell, we just defaulted towards these ideologies, in order to try provide ourselves with our critical needs, and they have absolutely failed, and the disturbing thing is, we re still defaulting to this thinking. the world cannot be simplified as basic understandings such as supply and demand, as this thinking is almost completely devoid of human behavior in its entirety, the fact that all humans are actually complex emotional beings, and behave as such....

yes, it does indeed seem that some regulations and standards are simply too high, also compounding the problem

if you re going to try come on the internets, and present your chosen economic ideologies, i.e. primarily neoclassical, maybe do a little research on it, you might find, its actually very disturbing underneath it all, with its 'simplifying assumptions' etc etc etc!

no idea where you re going with the conspiracy stuff, im not paranoid at all! we ve simply screwed ourselves with this type of thinking, i.e. over simplification of what is in fact 'complex dynamic systems', then add in the fact, humans are not rational beings, equals, a whole pile of sh1te!

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In the grand scheme of things I would say feck all of the ones responsible for all the murders, tortures were ever brought to justice.

And especially so by the Israelies.

Yes they had major coups like Eichmann, but they lost a fair few.

And it wasn't just the Soviets that used the old nazis as secret policemen.

The US did as well.

Hell shure didn't a lot of the Einsatzgruppen just melt back into their former profession as policemen in Germany post war.

Actually the more you look into it, the more you realise post war West Germany protected a hell of a lot of their nazi murderers.

Didn't France do it as well in the supposed interests of national unity.

When I visited years back I found Estonians lovely, if somewhat reticent.

Maybe it similarity to their near neighbours the Finns or maybe it was their recent enough history of getting shafted by Soviet oppressors.

And back on topic what joy those communists brought to all they conquered.

Maybe we should look at the bright side as previous poster told us and look at what development they brought to all.

Didn't they build lovely tower blocks for everyone and give them nuclear power to keep them warm in those cold winters.

Granted sometimes they also gave them a nice glow depending on what way they wind blew. 🙄