this post was submitted on 14 Jun 2024
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I would also like to note because my other reply ran out of space, I wouldn't consider myself an anti-communist, but rather pro-democracy.
There's plenty of communists, even leninists, that I look up to for inspiration, people and movements such as Allende, Sankhara, Che, Hu Yaobang, and the French and Italian communist parties being some examples, and I don't think the actions of Lenin or even Stalin are universally bad, just that their authoritarian actions allowed for abuses that never should've happened in the name of socialism, and that there's also plenty of inspiration in non-Leninist democratic socialists such as Goldman, Luxemburg, Haywood, Bevan, and Meidner.
You guys are comically well described by Parenti... "I'd like to cite every failed socialist movement as a source of inspiration".
I think there's just a different measure of success. I think the socialist movement that built up the NHS in England with Bevan, the movement that built the Workers Coucils in France, the socialists that wons the 8 hour day globally, the Zapitistas, the PKK/YPG, and the rest of the socialist movements that built the modern welfare state could be considered successful.
I measure success more on the material conditions of the working class, rather than if the party has complete control over a country. Currently the democratic socialist movements have more control in the Democratic world, global South and global North, than the Leninists do.
The very second that China, Vietnam, Cuba, or Laos actually allows for free elections between multiple socialist factions, and not just the control of society by a party elite, that's the second I'll consider those leninists more successful than the Democratic Socialists.
I'm sorry but citing England and France, two of the most imperialist countries in the world, as examples of where workers managed to achieve victories against capital, is a bit racist to me. The whole welfare in the Global North (for the lucky ones who enjoy it) is built upon unequal exchange with colonial countries. It's imperative to understand that non-internationalist worker movements that don't care about imperialism are the actual bourgeois concessions that you mentioned earlier.
Zapatistas and Rohinya are some of the few examples of functional, more anarchist and decentralised cases of socialist movements that triumphed, and while all of my support goes to them and I love what they're doing, they're regional and small movements for a reason. As soon as the west seems them powerful or big or influential enough to be a threat, I fear they'll be eliminated.
Excuse me, which demsoc movements have control in the so-called "democratic world"?
Speaking of Cuba, I bring another source: a book by Pedro Ross called "how the worker's parliaments saved the cuban revolution" on how the cuban unions democratically decided the future of the country in an unprecedentedly democratic manner during the so-called "periodo especial" in the 90s when Cuba's main economic partner, the USSR, dissolved overnight. It's a textbook example of what democracy means to me, much more so than multi-party liberal democracy systems in which 100% of the parties in power represent the oligarchic capital. Anyhow, how's your statement that as soon as they have multi-party systems you'll consider them successful, consistent with your claim that you measure success on the material conditions of the working class?
Great discussion, very informative. Thanks
Certainly, but the left wing of the Labor party and the Communist Party in France were the ones to advocate for and eventually succeed in gaining decolonization, instead of endless campaigns of repression.
Lula in Brazil, Luis Arce in Bolivia, Claudia Sheinbaum in Mexico, and Gabriel Boric in Chile to name a few.
I'll have to read it, I've been meaning to do more research on Cuba.
I believe the main abuses of the Communist parties were caused by their complete control over power with no recourse. When the party became repressive, the leaders/bureaucrats making the decisions couldn't be voted out, not even by average party members. I also just thoroughly have an issue with the party dictating to the working class what it's priorities are, and not the reverse. I'm not arguing they'd even have to start having multi-party elections, but at least have multiple people within the part contest the same seat in the politburo/central committee/legislature, argue for separate sets of ideas or plans (that adhere to party ideology), and let the party members decide which should be deciding the future of the party and country. That'd be enough for me, currently I see the political selection process in communist states to be controlled from above, usually by the highest organs of power, such as the Organization Department of the Chinese Communist Party, which controls the party and state bureaucracy, and the Politburo, which controls the process in China.
As for the longer comment I'll answer in another moment, I'm out right now. You're definitely one of the most reasonable anticommunists I've discussed with.