you can never get them to agree capitalism kills.
"human nature" or something.
this post was submitted on 07 Jul 2026
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People confuse "People calling themselves communists killed people" and "communism killed people" which are two very different sentences.
I'll direct you towards my comment elsewhere, copied here:
"Not real communism" has 2 flavors.
-
Western "leftist" edition, claiming all existing socialist states never achieved even socialism
-
Marxist edition, pointing out that socialism is a transition to communism, and that communism has not been achieved yet.
The latter is correct, but often gets mistaken for the former, which results in rhetorical gotchas by liberal debatelords.
In other words, communists have killed people and made mistakes, but have played an overwhelmingly positive role. Further, most of the people killed by the communists have been fascists, capitalists, landlords, etc.
Ah yes capitalism, famously devoid of corporationa
"Not real communism" has 2 flavors.
-
Western "leftist" edition, claiming all existing socialist states never achieved even socialism
-
Marxist edition, pointing out that socialism is a transition to communism, and that communism has not been achieved yet.
The latter is correct, but often gets mistaken for the former, which results in rhetorical gotchas by liberal debatelords.
No it's not.
This is correct:
- Excuses by people who don't know what actually happened or what the actual critique given is. For example counting millions of killed nazis and taking life expectancy and compare it to a nation completely untarnished by world wars with an abundance of fossil fuels taken from the indigenous people.
One can calculate this way too. I'll show you.
Since Usonia is capitalist and the population is around 350 million of which the indigenous people is maybe 2 million,
Usonia alone has killed therefore at least 345 million people, since all those people could have been indigenous.
That's fair too, stats fuckery is a time-honored tradition.
You know what they say, there's lies, damned lies, and statistics.
Still accurate!
Can we discuss this? I don't believe that Marx's definition of communism is a form of society that comes after socialism. I think communism exists now within the working class. Its the real struggle against capitalist class owned private property and capitalist directed production and distribution of the historic means of production.
I actually really don't like the definition of communism as something strictly "out there". Communism exists just as sure as capitalism exists. Socialism can become communist, but communism goes away when capitalism goes away. Communism is the negation of "bourgeois" private property. The left is already too idealist and prefigurative, and Marx was really against that.
If you ask me, the idea of socialism as the achievement of minimum demands, that leads to communism as the realization of maximum demands, is not a Marxist communist theory of change, it is a social democratic one.
I think you're getting at the concept of communism as a movement vs. communism as a mode of production. As a communist, I am committed to bringing about communism the mode of production, so in a way this process itself is "communism" from a certain view. However, this becomes very confusing for those not familiar, and so I try to keep things compartmentalized when discussing with those not as informed.
Socialism is chiefly a mode of production best seen as a transition between capitalism and communism. It's the process of building the communist society where money, class, and the state have been abolished, where private property is no longer a thing. Drawing a distinction between the process of building something, and the object being built, is important. It's the difference between the movement and the goal.
You’re clearly alluding to the words in The German Ideology about communism being the real movement which abolishes the present state of things. And yet in the same work, and in several others, Marx and Engels also do talk about “communist society” and give some rough descriptions of how it would operate. The notion that communism is pure negativity and that it “goes away when capitalism goes away” (or that "the idea of socialism as the achievement of minimum demands, that leads to communism as the realization of maximum demands, is not a Marxist communist theory of change, it is a social democratic one") is something you would have to take up with a lot of works, again, but this is most clearly put down in Critique of the Gotha Programme.
And I don’t think Marx would go so far as to say “communism exists now within the working class,” because there is no world-historic struggle by the collective proletariat to the present state of things; struggle on the individual level is not communism, as is also made clear in TGI, nor would communism exist within the working class semantically regardless, as it is the [which seizes upon the immanent negativity in capitalism and reorganizes production, thereby upheaving capitalist relations of production], it is not some rebellious spirit people come to possess.
Its true that Marx discusses communist society in Critique of the Gotha Programme, that is a good call out. However CotGP is not a description of communism, but a criticism of Lassalle. Marx is also very specific in the way he defines "society" and is explicit that it is a tendency of the "old materialism", which is still the dominant form of materialism as it is bourgeois materialism, to define society in a way that is static, abstract, and impractical. Marxists can't define any society in an idealist, bourgeois way, and also adhere to a revolutionary program.
Theses on Feuerbach is such an important document. Unfortunately, many Marxists do not understand it, and default to idealist conceptions of individuals and society; or at least inconsistent in how they apply a Marxist method to analysis.
From Thesis I:
The chief defect of all hitherto existing materialism... is that the thing, reality, sensuousness, is conceived only in the form of the object or of contemplation, but not as sensuous human activity, practice, not subjectively. Hence, in contradistinction to materialism, the active side was developed abstractly by idealism – which, of course, does not know real, sensuous activity as such.
It matters how we define the individual. Not just abstractly, but as a sensing, experiencing subject. Since we can't possibly imagine what those experiences will be in "communist society" we can't imagine a communist individual existing in that society.
From Thesis III:
The coincidence of the changing of circumstances and of human activity or self-changing can be conceived and rationally understood only as revolutionary practice.
This is just a really important passage, as it defines Marxist praxis. The individual in society experiences their world, thinks about it, takes action that changes it; then, by experiencing the changes, changes the self. This changed self contemplates, and takes action, so on. This process of change, the process that fuses of subject and object in the individual , is necessary to understand in order to change anything in society.
How does this relate to defining far off post socialist "communist society?" Well, communist society will be brought about through mass, continual change of this sort, the society will be defined by this revolutionary process. However, this process does not come about by achieving communist society, this process is present now and generally referred to by communists as "theory + practice." So communism isn't actually defined by a future condition but by a present condition that will continually develop into the central characteristic of individuals in communist society.
VIII:
All social life is essentially practical. All mysteries which lead theory to mysticism find their rational solution in human practice and in the comprehension of this practice.
Ideas only exist in practice. Since "communist society" can not be practiced, it does not exist. It cant define communists, it is an ideal. So what defines communism is what is practiced.
IX:
The highest point reached by contemplative materialism, that is, materialism which does not comprehend sensuousness as practical activity, is contemplation of single individuals and of civil society.
The "comprehension" of "communist society" does not even reach the level of contemplating single individuals! Only an abstract civil society. So it does not even reach the level of bourgeois materialism, it's not scientific, its pre-modern conception. It is post apocalypse, it's heaven and hell. Its fine to think this way, it is fine to daydream, but it can not be what defines us.
In the Manifesto, Marx defines communists by what we do:
The Communists, therefore, are on the one hand, practically, the most advanced and resolute section of the working-class parties of every country, that section which pushes forward all others; on the other hand, theoretically, they have over the great mass of the proletariat the advantage of clearly understanding the line of march, the conditions, and the ultimate general results of the proletarian movement.
Marx is then explicit:
The theoretical conclusions of the Communists are in no way based on ideas or principles that have been invented, or discovered, by this or that would-be universal reformer. They merely express, in general terms, actual relations springing from an existing class struggle, from a historical movement going on under our very eyes.
This is a total dismissal of the definition of communism as some future idyllic society. Right here at the beginning of part two of the manifesto. Defining communism as an idyllic future society is not the historic role of communists. Understanding existing conditions and plotting a way forward is our role.
I see too many socialists and communists more consumed by what could be than what is. And that's probably not you! I'm sure you have the correct discipline that allows you to both imagine a better world and fight for one. If imagining a better world is the impetus for actually engaging in the here and now, then that's a subjective factor that is part of the process. But emphasis matters, Lenin was known to "bend the stick". Communism is concretely not "what comes after socialism." Communism is the struggle today, not the dreams of tomorrow, and I'm tired of this other definition being what defines us.
However CotGP is not a description of communism, but a criticism of Lassalle.
It’s a criticism of Lassalle that also contains a description of communism. These things aren’t mutually exclusive.
Since we can’t possibly imagine what those experiences will be in “communist society” we can’t imagine a communist individual existing in that society.
Marx violates this in TGI.
The issue you seem to be having throughout everything is the comprehension of revolutionary subjects as unconscious pseudo-subjects, where revolution comes about as a mechanical inevitability springing from capitalism, and ““communist society”” (unpredictably) from this (“communist society will be brought about”), hence the ability to preserve the movement towards communist society via ~“revolutionary praxis” but do away with this as the ultimate goal.
So communism isn’t actually defined by a future condition but by a present condition that will continually develop into the central characteristic of individuals in communist society.
For Marx, communism is defined by a present condition (“the premises now in existence” ~ TGI) which carries the possibility for the creation of a communist society (“Looked at historically this inversion appears as the point of entry necessary in order to enforce, at the expense of the majority, the creation of wealth as such, i.e. the ruthless productive powers of social labour, which alone can form the material basis for a free human society.” – Draft Ch. 6 of Capital). This possibility is immanent to these conditions and therefore Marx and Engels can sketch certain features of this possible society through studying present society and its historical premises, which is the actual basis for their call for the proletariat to become organized and unite.
I don’t care if you disagree with Marx but that is what you’re doing.
Ideas only exist in practice.
This isn’t what Marx is saying, nor is it true.
This is a total dismissal of the definition of communism as some future idyllic society. Right here at the beginning of part two of the manifesto.
I already addressed a very similar passage from TGI.
If imagining a better world is the impetus for actually engaging in the here and now, then that’s a subjective factor that is part of the process.
No, it's absolutely not just motivation. Communist society being a real possibility/historical necessity (in what is effectively though not explicitly a moral “should”), is what Marxism rests on–this is where “historical materialism” is supposed to transcend the “social materialism” of classical political economy. You can’t justify the call for global proletarian revolution without this. If it turns out that Marx doesn’t manage to prove this, that it can’t be proven because of when the Owl of Minerva spreads its wings, then the only thing to do is to drop Marxism.
Ideas only exist in practice
He says this twice in TonF. The first time he says it is in the second Thesis:
The question whether objective truth can be attributed to human thinking is not a question of theory but is a practical question. Man must prove the truth — i.e. the reality and power, the this-sidedness of his thinking in practice. The dispute over the reality or non-reality of thinking that is isolated from practice is a purely scholastic question.
The last, most famous line is a conclusion drawn from this. You can nit pick this semantically or whatever, but semantics aren't Marxist.
It is what he is saying. Like I get your point that because capitalism creates two opposed classes, one which creates value through labor, and another that exploits that labor for their own benefit, that capitalism creates not just the possibility for the oppressed class to not just overthrow the power of the ruling class, but, because the working class is the vast, vast majority, we create a more just and democratic society. Where, for for the first time in history, the ruling class would be the vast mass of people, where cooperation and solidarity is our objective interest, which carries within it the possibility of abolition of class antagonism.
But you are going to have to provide something more substantive on your theory of individuals as pseudo-subjects. I'm not confused about this. I think you're being overly mechanical, and dismissing my point without evidence. It seems like you're just chucking subjectivity out the window, and giving into determinism. There is a deterministic element to Marxism, the world dictates the limits and possibilities, but people change it. I really don't buy what your selling here, and you're not supporting your argument, on this very load-bearing point.
I'm not getting rid of goals. To me the goal is to determine what is happening here and now, and make predictions and plans based in concretion. Marx's theories about "communist society" are concrete enough to believe, but they are still very abstract and impossible to relate to directly. They change nothing on their own.
I'm not trying to disprove them. But I don't see how something in the far flung future defines us, and you aren't convincing me. To me its a very idealist attitude that isn't based in people's direct experience since it isn't an absolute given that we experience the central contradictions of capitalism directly. The vast majority of people are unconvinced of it, and you can't even convince me, a Marxist. If all you are gonna do is tell me I'm wrong without acknowledging a single point that I've made, and I don't mean just quoting and debunking, but actually addressing, then thanks for your time.
I see a lot of people fixated on a future that doesn't exist, and not really communists, who often are quite practical, even if it isn't as practical as I would like. But lots of socialists and new people joining our movements, I don't think the over emphasis on what comes way in the future is helpful. These people have to get out of their idealisms and into actual work. Communists balance this in practice, but emphasize the idealized in definition. New communists tend to learn axioms before learning about their own communities, which is exactly backwards, and not what Marxism teaches us.
My version is: people calling themselves communists, but then extolling all the great things that a state can do by calling top-down social control "consensus" of the proletariat, and who clearly don't actually want to engage with the 'commune' part of communism.
Communism is not communalism. At least if we are talking about Marxist understandings. Top-down administration is not incompatible with bottom-up consensus building, and both are necessary in a fully collectivized system across the entire world.
Communism is not communalism, but it is heavily based on the Commune as a structure (I mean, Marx was literally drawing on the Paris Commune in formulating it) and means of governing by consensus of the proletariat.
Too many communists make a "survival of the fittest"-like mistake when trying to understand DoTP as Marx intended it, which was a descriptive state where the actions of the Proletariat as a body signify their collective will, and only conceptualize it as Lenin bastardized it, which was as a prescriptive mandate for authority by the State.
The Paris Commune, in Marx's analysis, was both progressive and yet a failure for not smashing the former state apparatus and failing to establish proletarian state power. The idea of having a bunch of horizontalist, indepentent but interconnected cells is not a Marxist notion, but instead closer to anarchism. Lenin did not bastardize the DotP, he clarified Marx's intentions against the bastardization by the second international.
Marx never intended there to be a vanguard party, and Engels literally said, "Look at the Paris Commune. That was the Dictatorship of the Proletariat". The universal suffrage that Marx explicitly did credit to the Commune, that made the Commune closest to real statelessness and classlessness, was totally abolished by Lenin (I think he actually called it "bourgeoise fetishism" in one critique).
Marx also never defined DotP in terms of violence, it was purely about class rule by the proletariat over the bourgeoise, as where Lenin explicitly defined it as requiring violent suppression of the bourgeoise by the proletariat. Marx always left open peaceful transitions to socialist rule, whereas Lenin explicitly ruled that out, and their definitions of DotP are at their core unaligned because of that. DotP was, to Marx, what happened as the state began to dissolve towards actual stateless Communism. To Lenin, it was (as I said before) a mandate to state power for the party (insert "stop resisting, you're being liberated" meme).
Whether you think Lenin was justified given his circumstances, a minority class of 'party-conscious' executives "leading" the proletariat while also suppressing and later banning rival socialist parties and party factions, is absolutely not what Marx intended DotP to look like.
Lenin also asserted the inability of the proletariat to form class consciousness in ways that, to me as a non-Leninist look like a validation of Trotsky's early criticisms (and obviously Trotsky was right in the end about 'substitutionism', and about Stalin). Lenin couldn't openly disparage proletariat rule for obvious reasons, but he did attempt to draw heavy distinctions between the proletariat and revolutionary leaders themselves, such as asserting that the proletariat would only achieve "trade-union consciousness" without the party (leaders) there to essentially save them from themselves.
It's funny you explicitly contrast Marxism against anarchism, because that feels like the colloquial meaning of anarchism? Otherwise, you're essentially ruling out the eventual dissolution of State and Class, which is a form of anarchism.
Marx was a member of what can be understood as a vanguard party, the International Working Men's Association. Marx was not against vanguard parties. The Paris Commune was a dictatorship of the proletariat, but you're fixating on the key problems with it that prevented it from being a successful dictatorship of the proletariat, which the Bolsheviks succeeded in establishing.
Lenin's point on how, without forming broad working class organizations, sponteniety will at most result in the Trade Union consciousness, is correct. It isn't that the proletariat could not form class consciousness in general, but that without an all-encompassing organization, these will always be limited to the extent that the proletariat is confined to local struggle. Having the most politically advanced among the proletariat organize in a political party is the same as how Marx engaged in political practice.
Lenin did not draw a distinction between the proletariat and the political party. Lenin did the opposite, stating that the party is of the proletariat. "Intellectuals" are not a class, they are a subsection of every class, and in organizing in a political party they serve as proletarian "intellectuals." I'm using air quotes because the term "intellectual" is a social role, not a measure of intelligence, you can be a very stupid intellectual or a very smart non-intellectual.
As for Trotsky/Stalin, this is wrong. Trotsky became a traitor, and was wrong about distrusting the peasantry. Stalin was more correct than Trotsky, and though I would charitably say that their big schism was an avoidable tragedy, Stalin was the one in the right on that fight. That's why he was elected, and supported by the people.
As for Marxism vs. Anarchism, the final end result of each is entirely different. Marxism posits full collectivization across the entire global economy, which represents a true end to class distinctions globally. Anarchism instead goes for full horizontalism, which results in petty bourgeois worker-cooperative style cells. Marxism and Anarchism understand class and the state differently, so what is stateless and classless for a Marxist has a state and class for anarchists, and vice versa.
Correction it's not 100 million sweaty it's a gorillian
goog guy stays chill and says chill thing, evil guy says thing angrily and shouts. classic
Sure, but it's rare for my politics to be portrayed as the good chill guy, so lemme have this one حبيبتي
I'll bite, what's the source / reasoning behind the .1bil number?
Lysenkoism vs Corporatism.
Lysenkoism was a response to the overwhelming prevalence of race theory among western countries, that were using the gene as a scientific basis for eugenics. Much of science was this way, not just biology, and the soviets were dedicated dialectical materialists. Lysenko wasn't a random crank, but the Lysenkoist theory of inheritance was ultimately wrong, even if done out of trying to reject eugenics scientifically.
The Soviets were ultimately very scientifically advanced due to dialectical materialism placing such an emphasis on science, and in many ways were beyond the west, who were still trying to biologically justify colonialism with pseudoscience.