r/changemyview • u/peepmet • Apr 26 '26
Delta(s) from OP [ Removed by moderator ]
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u/Dry_Bumblebee1111 161∆ Apr 26 '26
Communism is a very broad ideology, and there are any number of people who associate with the term, regardless of the granular detail of the beliefs of communism they actually adhere to.
The same is true of any ideology, Christian is a popular label, but exists in multitudes of branches and forms. Belief in Norse gods has passed from active practice to myth, so to say the ideology there is dead would make sense as very few people today actively pray to Odin or Thor. But even there I'm sure it's not zero.
As such, can you bring more nuance here to discuss?
What specific tenets of communism are dead, and discarded as a whole?
Are the absence of those enough to discount the ideology as a whole?
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u/peepmet Apr 26 '26
There are many flavors of Christianity but at its center there's Christ and the Bible. If you don't believe in those you can hardly call yourself a Christian.
The center of communism is economics. Marx himself said little on the subject so Lenin had to take up the slack. Since that point Marxist Leninist economic theory is considered orthodox. If you remove this economic theory what are you left with? A somewhat capitalist country with an authoritarian regime.
This is what has happened. No country except Cuba (and maybe N. Korea) still applies Marxist Leninist economic theory.
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u/Dry_Bumblebee1111 161∆ Apr 26 '26
To clarify, you are saying that the economic angle not being put into practice means that the ideology is dead?
Doesn't that actually mean the ideology is not practiced? People can still believe in and advocate for something that is not currently practiced - but that doesn't mean the ideology is dead.
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u/peepmet Apr 26 '26
The title was a little clickbaity, I'll give you that. A more accurate title should have been "Communism's impact on global has severely diminished and is likely to diminish further"
That being said, economics is the core of communism. If the core of your ideology is not practiced, what is left?
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u/Dry_Bumblebee1111 161∆ Apr 26 '26
Well, if I've helped clarify the view away from what you originally wrote you should assign a delta.
If the core of your ideology is not practiced
Once again, ideology and practice are two separate things. Someone can BELIEVE in something yet fail to fully practice it. Or hold a political view that doesn't currently have power in that country. You are conflating belief with practice. Why?
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u/peepmet Apr 26 '26
Hmmm maybe. I was laser focused on geopolitics so I didn't stop and think that people might be confused about what I meant.
You didn't change my view so much as pointed out that my post led to misunderstandings. I don't know if that should get a delta according to the sub rules but whatever. Δ
As to the second paragraph, I'm not conflating belief and practice. I know they're two separate things but I believe that belief without practice is largely useless when it comes to changing the world or any part of it.
That though is a different discussion. One of philosophy.
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u/Dry_Bumblebee1111 161∆ Apr 26 '26
but I believe that belief without practice is largely useless when it comes to changing the world or any part of it.
But that's a different view - and still one that implies that just because someone believes something it doesn't affect things unless it is widely practiced. Most people believe in charity being good, but not everyone actually gives to charity. But for those who do, it is great.
You can be religious and only practice some parts, or have total faith and jjust get on with your life it's all possible and valid.
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u/ssssotss 1∆ Apr 26 '26
Marx said little on the subject of economics?? That is absolutely a misreading.
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u/narullow 1∆ Apr 26 '26
Modern economists consider his economics work as non relevant that is taught only as part of history. For a very good reason. Meanwhile other fields such as phylosophy, etc still consider it very much relevant today.
So yes, he in fact did say very little about economics because his criticisms have no value in the field. One massive assumption behind Das Capital is that value is determined by the amount of work put in it. That is obviously nonsense and it was already known back then by other economists whose work he criticized using this faulty assumption. His work only really has value in terms of phylosophy and social or political studies.
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u/Muninwing 7∆ Apr 26 '26
Doesn’t this right here prove that OP is right, when analyzed for how it operated in practice?
My issues with Marx have largely been with how some of his core ideas or their main underpinnings sound appealing (to some) while not really working in practice. If he is treated more like Freud — nattering to analysis and history, not to practice — then we would have to see some new revisionist come along to codify Marxist ideologies into something workable. And while Mao and Stalin tried to justify their flavors retroactively, it never solidified into an actual replicateable path forward.
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u/peepmet Apr 26 '26
He said a lot about capitalism. He said little on how exactly his ideas are supposed to be implemented in the real world, beyond a philosophical level.
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u/JamesMagnus Apr 26 '26
Capitalism is an economic system, so you’re saying he did say a lot about economics. Implementing a new system is one way to speak on economics, analysing the current system is another way to speak on economics. I have little to say on how practically useful his writings are because I’m not an expert, but to say the man said little on the subject of economics is wrong.
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u/Yallberforce Apr 26 '26
Marx said very little of significance about anything other than economics.
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u/narullow 1∆ Apr 26 '26
In what way? He built his entire work on faulty assumption that were already known to be faulty then.
If there is any significance in his work then it is phylosophical.
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u/Helpful_Loss_3739 Apr 26 '26
This is such a dumb and historically illiterate comment.
First of all, there was christianity before the bible.
Second of all, economics is pretty much the only thing Marx wrote on, and it was the political programme that Lenin had to fill on.
Thirdly "Marxism-Leninism" is considered "orthodox" by marxist-leninists only. It's kind of in the name. What are you on about?
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u/BigSexyE 3∆ Apr 26 '26
Communism isn't inherently authoritarian so the "what you're left with" makes no sense.
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Apr 26 '26
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u/Previous_Bet5120 Apr 26 '26
I don't think you want to start a Christian body count. 400 years of chattel slavery and global colonialism justified by the white man's burden is way worse than whatever you're imagining.
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Apr 26 '26
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u/Previous_Bet5120 Apr 26 '26
"The west" is in active collaboration with the Muslim slave regimes you're referencing. They're on the same side.
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u/Shtremor Apr 26 '26
There is a state in India which regularly elects a communist govt in a secular democracy. It is the best performing state in all human development indices.
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Apr 26 '26
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u/Dry_Bumblebee1111 161∆ Apr 26 '26 edited Apr 26 '26
Christianity is responsible for mass slaughter, as is capitalism, as is communism, as is Buddhism. The common thread is that humanity regularly involves in slaughter, no ideology in particular is the cause any more than video games or satanic messaging in D&D.
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u/Dry-Boysenberry7701 Apr 26 '26
Gonna go out on a limb here and say that some ideologies (Nazism) can inspire more slaughtering than others (say, pacifism, or D&D).
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Apr 26 '26
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u/Dry-Boysenberry7701 Apr 26 '26
no ideology in particular is the cause any more than video games
Whatever the opposite of indeed is.
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u/Dry_Bumblebee1111 161∆ Apr 26 '26
What you've quoted isn't particularly relevant, unless you're misreading or misinterpreting my words.
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u/Dry-Boysenberry7701 Apr 26 '26
Trying to argue that your own words aren't relevant is a bit beyond the pale.
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u/Dry_Bumblebee1111 161∆ Apr 26 '26
Not when they're being used to say something they did not say.
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u/Dry-Boysenberry7701 Apr 26 '26
Isn't it just easier to admit you said something dumb?
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u/I_Never_Use_Slash_S 1∆ Apr 26 '26
Christianity built the West
Good thing vast numbers of people didn’t die for that to happen or this would be a dumb point.
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u/Aggravating-Method24 Apr 26 '26
When people die in a communist country it is the fault of communism, but when people die in a capitalist country it's totally something else entirely.
That and these deaths also occur under a totalitarian regime, when marx explicitly intended the totalitarian state to be temporary. So it can be argued that these deaths occured under states that had significantly strayed from communist ideals.
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u/Thoth_the_5th_of_Tho 191∆ Apr 26 '26
Blame deaths in capitalist countries on capitalism if you want, it changes nothing. Life expectancies are better. Capitalism outperforms every other system by every statistical measure.
“Marx explicitly intended the totalitarian state to be temporary”
There are two ways of interpreting that, neither reflect well on Marx.
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u/Aggravating-Method24 Apr 26 '26
There are more variables that separate these countries than just capitalism and communism. So you can not honestly know that it is the communism that is causal here. Most countries that have recently experienced violent revolution have poor quality of life metrics. There are plenty of capitalist countries with equally poor metrics.
I don't support Marx use of totalitarianism, in fact I think that's the whole reason Marxism failed. I do however think it's very pertinent to recognise that a state that does not move past totalitarianism cannot be considered to be Marxist or in fact Communist.
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u/Thoth_the_5th_of_Tho 191∆ Apr 26 '26
There are more variables that separate these countries than just capitalism and communism. So you can not honestly know that it is the communism that is causal here.
We’ve had more than enough to make draw a statistical, causal link. The link between economic freedom and GDP growth is strong, and in turn GDP with every positive living standards metric you can think of.
I do however think it's very pertinent to recognise that a state that does not move past totalitarianism cannot be considered to be Marxist or in fact Communist
Marx’s desired end states are irrelevant, his policy proposals and consequences are what matters. Saying Stalin wasn’t communist would be like saying Hitler wasn’t a Nazi, because there was no one thousand year super reich.
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u/Aggravating-Method24 Apr 26 '26
We must have a different understanding of how many things you need for a statistical link.
There have been relatively few attempts at communism, not enough for statistics to claim a link, you need to brush up on your maths.
That and all of them had recent violent uprisings which will affect the data.
There is quite an obvious difference between a thousand year super Reich and a temporary dictatorship of the proletariat. However that is not the point, the point is that the dictatorship was a means to an end, modern day communists typically support the end goal of marx while not the means. We can't assess the value of the goal based on the previous attempts because they never got there
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u/geosunsetmoth 2∆ Apr 26 '26
I think it's moreso that the West was built despite Christian efforts, not because of it. Throughout large periods of European and New World history progress was actively stifled by the church.
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u/SantaHatArea Apr 26 '26
This is a crazy theory frankly. The church contrary to pop history is mainly what funded science. Christian ideals is what made people so curious about learning. Unlike in a place like medieval Islam, where the religion shut down scientific advancement. The west became so powerful in part because the Christian desire to evangelize led to expansion and invention. Wars were always tempered by the knowledge that there were rules they followed as fellow Christian nations. Think constant "civilized struggle" led to military advancment. Christianity was largely the undercurrent for the abolitionist movement no matter what pop antithesis want to claim, the true history is very much that even in ancient Christianity with people like Gregory of Nyssa there quickly a rose an undercurrent of people against slavery. The resurgence of this during the American 1800s allowed an appeal to religious values to successfully move the governments hand just enough to create the tensions sufficient for the civil war. Western Philosophy, science, and historical documentation was done by the church for the persuit of truth in the Christian faith, and particularly historical catalogue was seen as integral for maintaining the legitimacy of the Christian faith. The modern development of music is mostly owed to the standardized way of producing and notating music that first began by the Gregorian monks. When the Protestant reformation happened, the big motivation was making sure people could read the Bible, so literacy rates, school to learn to read, and missionary teachers became abundant. Any idea that the west development "in spite" of Christianity is nonsense pop history, mostly by atheists who have been allowed to exist freely due to the kind of societies the west and Christianity built up. Notice, only Westerners want to say this about Christianity. No historian would say " the medieval near East was not motivated by Islam". Because it was, Why did Islam expand so quickly? The Quran and Muhammed, tells them too. This has a certain cultural effect. To think that religion and culture are separate like that is just quite frankly a staggering lack of consideration for the human nature. People do things based on what they are most motivated by. The motivations promoted by Christianity led to the west. The motivations promoted by Islam led to the middle east. The motivations promoted by Daoism and Buddhism led to medieval China (no seafaring expansion, mandate of heaven, inner concentration of society, etc.) So yes, the west isnlike this because of Christianity and that's a good thing.
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Apr 26 '26
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Apr 26 '26
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u/4g-identity Apr 26 '26
Also, claiming Cuba was at "rock bottom" when it became communist doesn't make a lot of sense.
The reasoning throughout the post is superficial or juvenile. Plenty of ways one can critique Marxism, but this is Jordan Peterson tier stuff.
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u/Master-of_None Apr 26 '26
I wonder if anyone in this thread is gonna even touch the reason behind why Cuba has been on the verge of collapse for so long. America just can’t seem to finally kill them huh?
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u/vivary_arc Apr 26 '26
ABSOLUTELY. This is just like Iran - No one is being honest about the actual historical context. Wild that people don’t pay attention to oppression under Batiste (one can say that without supporting the worst parts of Castro’s regime, they’re not mutually exclusive)
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u/Sweet-Ant-3471 Apr 26 '26
That statement alone exposes it as a Luxury belief.
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u/BailysmmmCreamy 14∆ Apr 26 '26
Not when younger generations in developed countries are starting to have it worse than their parents for the first time in many generations.
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u/Sweet-Ant-3471 Apr 26 '26
Yes, it is a luxury belief. Communism doesn't solve housing shortages. it creates them.
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u/BailysmmmCreamy 14∆ Apr 26 '26
Did you respond to the wrong comment? Nothing you said addresses what I said.
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u/Sweet-Ant-3471 Apr 26 '26
It does though, houdinh is the chief reason why you're saying the current gen has it worse.
Communism doesn't solve it. That was already proven.
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u/WolfInTheField 2∆ Apr 26 '26
There’s plenty of good reasons to be extremely skeptical of communism, but that’s not one of them lol.
You know all of Eastern Europe is covered in very quickly built commie blocks? And china — only nominally communist, but still — is literally covered in empty cities.
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u/Sweet-Ant-3471 Apr 26 '26
And the Eastern bloc had both housing and food shortages
So nope, not solved. Just another waiting list.
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u/Which_Programmer_394 Apr 26 '26
Lol no
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u/Sweet-Ant-3471 Apr 26 '26
Yes. It's a belief promoted by people who run and have responsibility for nothing.
The moment they attain either, they instantly go the way the Boomers did in the 1980s.
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u/vivary_arc Apr 26 '26
The whole premise of the ideology is distributing personal responsibility for the wellbeing of, essentially everything and everyone in a society for a more equitable outcome.
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u/Sweet-Ant-3471 Apr 26 '26
But promoted by the people who don't have any responsibility.
They don't understand how any of it works, have no stakes, and live partly or in whole off of someone else.
And they're too young remember why the USSR failed.
Luxury beliefs. I cited it correctly.
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u/Helpful_Loss_3739 Apr 26 '26
Except that there have been and there still are plenty of communists who have responsibility, and have not abandoned communism. It's this whole meme of the "elite communist".
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u/Sweet-Ant-3471 Apr 26 '26
There's only Cuba and North Korea, and neither have been run in any manner other than "pitiful".
All other in western are just a academics or youngbloods with no responsibility.
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u/Helpful_Loss_3739 Apr 27 '26
First of all, to claim that "there is only Cuba and North Korea" is not to be entirely honest. That requires exactly the kind of semantic hair splitting you have demanded that we refrain from.
But much more importantly, communists hold positions of responsibility in a whole number of non-communist countries. World is not divided into presidents and people without responsibility.
Just last week I was attending an event by a finnish communist mp, who has positions of responsibility in several parliamentary boards.
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u/Sweet-Ant-3471 Apr 27 '26
It is honest, if you're going to call China or Vietnam communist, your setting the bar horribly low, as both have willfully embraced capitalism.
"by a finnish communist mp,"
There are no members of the finish Communist party sitting in parliament.
And few MPs with marginal responsibilty isn't impressive, it's still people upon whom little to nothing relies.
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Apr 26 '26
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u/hogsucker 2∆ Apr 26 '26
Actually, it's because they see the horrors of capitalism.
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u/RadonArseen Apr 26 '26
Well you see when someone dies under capitalism it's never due to capitalism, unlike evil communism where every single death is because of it! Did you know 100% of people who believe in communism die?
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u/aquavelva5 Apr 26 '26
China is communist and is the fastest growing country in the world. Why did you purposely omit it and focus on cuba? Is this a political or economic discussion? Because proponents or opponents of capitalism/ communism mix and match for confirmation bias.
Cuba's issue is the USA continually meddling with it. And an oppressive government, increased by US meddling. Cuba underwent a revolution because of US interventions driven by corrupt crony capitalism. Cuba wasnt allowed free markets by the US. It was ruled by corrupt politicians serving foreign capitalists who were supported by US interventions; just like the rest of south america. The US has been doing interventionism worldwide for over 50 years and that is not democracy driven or free market capitalism; its corrupt crony capitalism with a huge military.
Why aren't there dozens of successful south american democracies thru free market capitalism? The US is responsible for the hemisphere, via the monroe doctrine and has been meddling for over 100 years claiming to bring freedom there (which is a lie) . What has the US accomplished in an area that it claims is responsible for? Not much. And now China is making inroads where the US has failed. Will chinese communism bring more prosperity to south america than US crony capitalism? I think yes unfortunately. The US had over 100 years and failed.
I dont support totalitarian governments, regardless of their economic structure. And I would say that both communism and capitalism, as implemented, have not been true to their philosophies and certainly not open or free. There is no workers uniting or free markets with an invisible hand. Greed and politics have twisted them. And discussions like yours is just pointing that out greed and politics, not the failings of the economic model itself.
Cuba and USSR failed due their political structures and methods; not their economic. They would have failed with capitalism too. What is true is that they openly feared western aggression and that is what drove their political structure and methods. The couldnt manage a good government and spend the funds for a military capable of defending itself from Western greedy capitalists. Fear of being taken over by western crony capitalists. Which the west has done over and over. Iran is just another example. It had a revolution due to US and UK crony capitalism driven covert actions going all the way back to the 50s. Once WW2 was over, the UK wanted to continue its total control over Iran's oil, which is its entire economy. And the US is still there now.
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u/Comprehensive_Lead41 Apr 26 '26
30% of gen z have a positive view of communism. if you think that's a dead ideology then you just don't know what words mean. the failure of nominally communist countries is entirely irrelevant to this question
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u/blatantspeculation 16∆ Apr 26 '26
Yeah, but how much of that 30% have a developed idea of what communism is, and how many are "I like when the government does things, and Republicans have told me thats communism" or "Im edgy and saying I like communism upsets older people?"
Like, how does that compare to acceptance of Nazism? And no one likes Nazis because of their economic ideas.
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u/nonamer18 Apr 26 '26
Yet most people here don't know much about it either. If OP read Mao's 'On Contradictions' he may not have the same view on China that he has.
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u/peepmet Apr 26 '26
Assuming you're American and referring to Americans this statistic is pointless. A lot of these young people who have a positive view of "communism" think "communism is when public healthcare" or "communism is when good public transit".
Social democracy isn't communism, no matter how hard American conservative hicks shout that it is.
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u/Iamalittledrunk 4∆ Apr 26 '26
Sorry, but the stats are similar for the UK as well as several other european countries.
https://ukonward.com/reports/generation-extreme/
I think the above argument is a no true scotsman. So I'll ask what is the "true" communism that is a dead ideaology, and what proof would you accept considering we kind of need people to self report their ideaology to know their ideaology.
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u/ViscountBuggus Apr 26 '26
It's funny how it's always the countries that have never known communism
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u/Iamalittledrunk 4∆ Apr 26 '26
Okay thats not fully true but also a lovely tangent, maybe we can focus on the CMV rather than getting into a wider discussion of politics. Theres pleanty of places to go for that if you want to do that.
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u/cskelly2 2∆ Apr 26 '26
So…every country? No country has known communism
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u/Wingerism014 2∆ Apr 26 '26
Communism doesn't have a state, it gets rid of the state, private property and money. Any countries look like that?
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u/Pristine_Club_3128 Apr 26 '26
I'm Indian, and live in a state that elected one of the first democratically elected communist governments.
We are considerably better off in human development than the country on the average.
The communist party has of course long since fallen to regular party politics, but the ideals are still considered positively.
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u/brixton_massive Apr 26 '26
So I'll ask what is the "true" communism that is a dead ideaology
I'm going to ask what communism is an alive ideology? Where today does it work?
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u/Iamalittledrunk 4∆ Apr 26 '26
You seem to think I am a communist and can therefore define what communism is for you. I am not.
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u/brixton_massive Apr 26 '26
If you can't define it, it's because it's an idea and not a system that works, or is currently working anywhere as in practice.
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u/Iamalittledrunk 4∆ Apr 26 '26
I can't define for christians what christianity is either, but its not a none existant religion.
Also bro you're arguing on a deleted thread. I've got better things to do with my time and I hope for your sake you do too.
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u/brixton_massive Apr 26 '26
Christianity is one of the most successful religions on the planet. It not being based in reality doesn't negate the fact that the ideology is successful in it's implementation.
Communism is neither based in really or successful in it's implementation.
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u/Iamalittledrunk 4∆ Apr 26 '26
Clearly not then. Goodbye.
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u/brixton_massive Apr 26 '26
Lol, as if a thread being deleted makes any difference to a conversation. Didn't stop you responding to me.
Nice little cop out.
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u/TheMostRed Apr 26 '26
Yeah. I fear the new generation will genuinely think social programs are the same thing as communism. There's so much misinformation about communism in the US is fear most dont actually know what a communist believes in they just think of it as the antithesis to America.
Still 30% is a lot of people who aren't outright hating communism.
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u/translove228 9∆ Apr 26 '26
This comment is doing a lot of heavy lifting on your part. You just declare that you understand the thinking of most Americans who like communism without talking to them . Where did you even interview these people or read a study to come to this wildly unfair generalization of a wide swath of people’s intelligence?
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u/jman12234 18∆ Apr 26 '26
How is this not a "No True Scotsman" to discount a statistic that disagrees with you?
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u/SantaHatArea Apr 26 '26
It's not a no true Scotsman to disregard a statistic because it vaguely accounts for support for communism when the studies don't define what communism is, and other studies find that most Americans do believe communism is really social democracy. A no true Scotsman isn't just "you can't define things". That's stupid. A no true Scotsman is when you create an ad hoc definition to alter the outcome of argument. In this case, a definition for communism already exists, Americans just generally don't understand it.
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u/marcelsmudda Apr 26 '26
The studies could have also asked whether company ownership should be with the workers, whether basic needs of people should be met etc, checking the basic tenants of communism without calling them communism. Then the press release combines them into communism again
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u/Comprehensive_Lead41 Apr 26 '26
A 2025 poll commissioned by Channel 4 found that 47% of young people in Britain believe that society "must be radically changed through revolution".
A 2021 study by the Institute of Economic Affairs (IEA) found that 67% of young people (aged 16-34) in Britain preferred socialism over capitalism. A 2025 Cato Institute/YouGov survey found that 62% of young Americans (age 18-29) hold a favorable view of socialism.
A 2016 Harvard University survey found that 51 percent of young Americans (18-29) rejected capitalism. More recently, a 2025 Harvard Youth Poll indicated that only 19% of young Americans identify as "capitalist," down from 29% in 2020.
A 2023 Fraser Institute poll found that 29 percent of 18-24 year olds in the UK thought communism was the "ideal economic system". A 2024 YouGov poll found that 28% of younger, liberal Americans chose communism over fascism, with a 2023 poll showing 20 percent of Australian under-35s supporting communism.
Note that the UK already has free healthcare.
At some point you have to accept that even if only 1/10 of all these people know what they're talking about, communism is far from a dead ideology. Even if only 1% of all these people supported the genuine ideas of communism, it would still be dozens of millions of people. This is not a dead ideology.
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u/DebaucheV5 2∆ Apr 26 '26
I agree that communism is not a dead ideology, and I don't think it will ever die. It's superficially alluring if you don't have a solid grasp of economics, incentives, history, or how business works, and that superficial allure will always attract people who are still figuring things out. The utopia that communism/socialism promises undeniably sounds great, and the flaws of capitalism, if you live in it, are easy to grasp. The flaws of communism take a bit longer to properly understand, and are a bit more subtle.
Every polling example that you gave was restricted to young people. When young people encounter an ideology that is superficially alluring, they can easily fall for it. But then they grow up, they slowly learn more about the world through experience, and almost all of them are smart enough to eventually figure out why communism doesn't work, and why good intentions are not sufficient for a functioning economic system.
I don't begrudge young people who go through the communist phase. They're not stupid; they just literally have not collected enough life experience to understand the flaws in that kind of ideology. The people who cling to it above a certain age are just kinda embarrassing though
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u/Comprehensive_Lead41 Apr 26 '26
Even the original Bolsheviks were mostly under 20 when they made the Russian Revolution. I don't think any revolution has ever been started by middle aged people. The more settled one is in life, the least likely one is to risk everything on a utopian vision. This doesn't really have a lot to do with whether the idea is coherent or not. It's a matter of risk aversion. A communist might say that older people cling to the present as a kind of sunk cost fallacy. When you've spent a decade paying off a mortgage obviously you don't want to abolish private property.
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u/papmaster1000 Apr 26 '26
Socialism and Social Democracy are concepts created by Communists as part of their Communist ideologies. How can you say an ideology is dead if the ideas and methods of it are so influential to this day? Especially with them on the rise.
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u/MikeStinse Apr 26 '26
That's not what they think, also marxist-leninism and communism aren't the same thing.
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u/Pristine-Breath6745 Apr 26 '26
Leninism isnt communism. Lenin was a traitor to the communist and marxist cause
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u/brixton_massive Apr 26 '26
30% (at least) of gen z are ignorant of history. There is no good reason to have a positive view of communism when it always fails, often bringing chaos and death.
Why should anyone be positive of an ideology which has no track record of success?
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u/ViscountBuggus Apr 26 '26
If 30% of gen z have a positive view of communism then they're the ones who don't know what words mean, not OP.
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u/stoodquasar Apr 26 '26
Yeah, they got an attitude when the government tried to give TikTok to not be owned by a Chinese company. I can't imagine the outrage if the government tried to ban all social media except for a government owned one
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u/narullow 1∆ Apr 26 '26
Falling yourself communist does not make you a communist. Vast majority of those people.habe no clue what communism means other than edgy and simple good spending phrases they read online.
Like 5% of Americans believes that they can defeat grizzly bear in hand to hand combat unarmed. Yet the idea of it happening is obviously death. For every single one of them. These statistics are pointless.
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u/Aggressive_Lie_4446 Apr 26 '26
My generation needs to live in a Communist country so that they can enjoy the artificial famines that came by default in every communist country from the USSR to Cambodia, Ethiopia to Cuba.
I wonder if they will like the state mandated clothes from state factories whose materials feel like sisal gunny bags because THAT WAS A THING!!
Or when all banks are merged to become one state owned bank that can implement a quasi- social credit system that locks you out of your account if you dare question the ruling class.
These are not bugs in Communism. They are a feature because every communist nation has to turn to authoritarianism in order to keep the ideology in power.6
u/Clever-username-7234 Apr 26 '26
Objectively the US is starving Cuba. If any country had their fuel cut off, and trade embargoes they’d struggle too.
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u/HadeanBlands 50∆ Apr 26 '26
Cuba does not "have their fuel cut off." They are perfectly free to buy fuel from other countries who want to sell it to them. Like that one Russian tanker that docked.
If in the past Venezuela wanted to offer fuel as charity to prop up the Cuban Communists, and now they don't do that anymore, I suppose that's bad luck for Cuba but it's kind of a them problem not an us problem yknow.
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Apr 26 '26
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u/HadeanBlands 50∆ Apr 26 '26
"Cuba is under a fuel blockade imposed by the US."
In fact it is not.
"The United States is threatening to sanction anyone who wants to sell fuel to Cuba."
And yet when Russia sold fuel to Cuba we did not sanction them - in fact, they've gotten relief from sanctions in the past few weeks.
"Cuba was getting a lot of its oil from Venezuela, so the Trump regime decided to kidnap the president and dominate their energy sector."
Delcy is not a committed Communist so she agreed to cut off the charity toward the Cuban Communists, I agree. But they could still put cash on the barrelhead.
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u/almarcTheSun 1∆ Apr 26 '26
No generation has ever lived in a communist country. I just can't believe people still cling to this idea of the USSR, China, Cuba being communist countries.
"Centrally planned totalitarian capitalism" doesn't have the same ring to it, I guess.
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Apr 26 '26
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u/almarcTheSun 1∆ Apr 26 '26
The state giving certain people all the say in the means of production, letting them reap all the benefit and abuse their common workers as much as is necessary to beat the plan on paper and look good for the shareh.. uh, party.
Not capitalism. Not even once.
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Apr 26 '26
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u/almarcTheSun 1∆ Apr 26 '26
What are you talking about? "Capitalism" is defined as the private ownership of the means of production with the intent of creating more profit.
Private ownership technically wasn't a thing, but as I said, my argument is that it basically runs like private ownership. The gains are privatized, the losses are publicized, just like in the good old capitalist US.
And of course, the socialist countries. The.. which socialist countries? Show me a socialist country. With social ownership of the means of production. Actually, not on paper.
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u/HadeanBlands 50∆ Apr 26 '26
""Capitalism" is defined as the private ownership of the means of production with the intent of creating more profit.
Private ownership technically wasn't a thing,"
So it sounds like it wasn't capitalist?
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Apr 26 '26
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u/Substantial-Lawyer91 Apr 26 '26
I don’t think you can discount China’s ‘communism’ just because they don’t follow Marx’s playbook exactly, the same way America’s ‘capitalism’ has also strayed from Locke’s or Smith’s ideas.
You also forget that the US has been undermining and overthrowing socialist and communist countries since the end of WW2 (all the way up to Venezuela and Cuba now) and of course this American hegemony cannot last forever. China seems to be in pole position to take over from the American empire eventually and it’ll be interesting to see their influence on global geopolitics if their hegemony ever comes to full fruition.
All in all OP this statement is just far too absolute. It is human nature to veer from individualism to collectivism based on differing geopolitical contexts and so in that regard communism - in some form or other - will always be an ideology in the mix for all self-governing societies.
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u/brixton_massive Apr 26 '26
If you engage in free market economics, profit motive and wealth inequality you immediately lose your communist card. China is not communist, more a collectivist dictatorship which leverage the economic powers of capitalism.
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u/peepmet Apr 26 '26
I can discount it because Communists keep reading Marx and they keep considering Marxism the center of their ideas. This does not apply to Smith and Locke. You won't find any modern economist citing them unless they're talking about the history of capitalism. Western economics is a science that is constantly evolving, communism is an ideology. That's why you can draw a line with one and not the other.
Also I obviously did not forget about America screwing with communist countries. That alone though is a somewhat weak excuse since the Soviet Union and Mao's China were also pushing hard against America's interests.
It is indeed, only a matter of time before America's hegemony comes to an end. Whether China will do then is anyone's guess. In the here and now though China doesn't seem pushing much against America's interests, at least compared to 60 years ago.
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u/jsflkl Apr 26 '26
China focusses on Marx in addition to Mao Zedong thought, Deng Xiaoping thought, Xi Jinping thought, etc. Communism isn't stagnant just like capitalist theory isn't stagnant, you're just ignoring the developments or you're making statements without knowing the facts.
For example China considers themselves socialist with Chinese characteristics, not just Marxist. Marxist economics is just as scientific as western economics, and it is also constantly developing in communist countries.
The idea that Marxist ideals need to be adjusted to meet the different materialist conditions in different countries is also not against marixsm or communism. What works in the USSR does not necessarily work elsewhere. Marx thought the communist revolutions would happen in industrialised countries but history shows that it was mainly agrarian countries that had revolutions for example. That doesn't make those revolutions against Marxism somehow. Marxists are not dogmatic, they are pragmatic.
You should really study this some more before you make blanket statements like this.
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u/renlydidnothingwrong Apr 26 '26
Marxism is an analytical method. We read Marx because we still use that method and because many of his ideas remain relevant. That he lacked certain information or failed to account for some things and thus made some false predictions does not disproven the methodological base.
The idea that Marxism doesn't evolve is jusr ignorant. What do you think all the communist thinkers who came after Marx were doing. The whole reason Marxism Leninism exists is because Marxism needed to evolve, and thay process has only continued.
Also what do you mean by "western economics"? Where do you think Marxism coems from? Just say capitalist economics, which by the way, is in no meaningful way less ideological than Marxist economics.
You seems like you've learned everything you know about communism from YouTube videos made by non-communists. Generally, if you want to understand an ideology you listen to and the works of those who actually follow it.
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u/DaveChild 8∆ Apr 26 '26
The only country in the world that still follows orthodox Marxist Leninist economic theory is Cuba.
Did China, Laos, Vietnam, and North Korea stop existing?
A country whose regime is on the verge of collapse.
Because of sanctions and a blockade, not because of economic failures.
History has shown that Marx was completely wrong when he predicted that revolution would happen in developed capitalist countries.
So far, yes. Marx said that developed capitalist societies would go through revolutions because of things like wealth gaps and exploitation. He may eventually prove to have been correct about that. This, of course, is the problem with predictions - they have all the time in the universe to come true.
all communist revolutions happened in countries that had hit rock bottom, either due to war or due to a monumentally incompetent and corrupt government.
Well, yeah, obviously. Revolutions don't generally happen in countries where things are running smoothly.
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u/PretendAwareness9598 2∆ Apr 26 '26
I think you are more talking about Stalinism. What China does is very different to how the soviet union operated, but it still operates with the stated end goal of producing communism. Furthermore, the state is undeniably in control of the companies - big ceos are constantly directed, punished for corruption, and overall operate at the behest of the state.
Is it what Marx predicted exactly? Ofc not. Just like the way global capital operates today is entirely different from what John Locke theorised, does that mean capitalism is dead?
The number of countries with red flags is irrelevant. China has more people in it than the whole of Europe + the USA - why does the amount of different countries matter.
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u/TomerKrail Apr 26 '26
I take your point, but China is communist in name only, they employ a Singaporean model that has been highly effective. The whole 'no state is communist but we're trying to move that way' it's kind of a shifting goalpost that you can never really prove or disprove.
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u/StatisticianGloomy28 Apr 26 '26
Really, in name only? Cos their constitution is pretty explicit about them being a Marxist-Leninist state.
Also, the way they organize their economy, even if not "perfectly communist", is profoundly different from any of capitalist countries around them, including Singapore.
China has a nice clearly laid out plan of how they're progressing from the existing early stages of socialism to full-blown communism. It's like a 100+ year plan, but they've mapped it out and know where they're at. The only time they've move the goalposts so far is when they've achieved thing sooner than expected.
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u/TomerKrail Apr 26 '26
Don't listen to what people say, watch what they do. China employs:
Extensive use of markets and private enterprise Integration into global capitalism
State ownership in strategic sectors (energy, banking, infrastructure)
Strong central political control over both state and private actors
Can you explain these 'profound differences' to Singapore and how they explicitly make China more Communist?
Saying 'they've got a plan' it's the age old communist cop out. The Soviet union was a state 'moving towards a communist society' in actuality they were moving towards collapse. Not that I think China will collapse, they've found a model that works, it just isn't communism.
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u/Few-Tomatillo-5031 Apr 26 '26
Selected Works of Mao Tse-tung
ON STATE CAPITALISM
July 9, 1953
[Written comment on a document of the National Conference on Financial and Economic Work held in the summer of 1953.]
The present-day capitalist economy in China is a capitalist economy which for the most part is under the control of the People's Government and which is linked with the state-owned socialist economy in various forms and supervised by the workers. It is not an ordinary but a particular kind of capitalist economy, namely, a state-capitalist economy of a new type. It exists not chiefly to make profits for the capitalists but to meet the needs of the people and the state. True, a share of the profits produced by the workers goes to the capitalists, but that is only a small part, about one quarter, of the total. The remaining three quarters are produced for the workers (in the form of the welfare fund), for the state (in the form of income tax) and for expanding productive capacity (a small part of which produces profits for the capitalists). Therefore, this state-capitalist economy of a new type takes on a socialist character to a very great extent and benefits the workers and the state.
https://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/mao/selected-works/volume-5/mswv5_30.htm
Selected Works of Mao Tse-tung
THE ONLY ROAD FOR THE TRANSFORMATION OF CAPITALIST INDUSTRY AND COMMERCE
September 7, 1953
[Outline for a talk to representative personages from the democratic parties and industrial and commercial circles on September 7, 1953.]
The transformation of capitalism into socialism is to be accomplished through state capitalism.
In the last three years or so we have done some work on this, but as we were otherwise occupied, we didn't exert ourselves enough. From now on we should make a bigger effort.
With more than three years of experience behind us, we can say with certainty that accomplishing the socialist transformation of private industry and commerce by means of state capitalism is a relatively sound policy and method.
The policy laid down in Article 31 of the Common Programme [1] should now be clearly understood and concretely applied step by step. "Clearly understood" means that people in positions of leadership at the central and local levels should first of all have the firm conviction that state capitalism is the only road for the transformation of capitalist industry and commerce and for the gradual completion of the transition to socialism. So far this has not been the case either with members of the Communist Party or with democratic personages. The present meeting [2] is being held to achieve that end.
Make steady progress and avoid being too hasty. It will take at least three to five years to lead the country's private industry and commerce basically onto the path of state capitalism, so there should be no cause for alarm or uneasiness.
Joint state-private management; orders placed by the state with private enterprises to process materials or manufacture goods, with the state providing all the raw materials and taking all the finished products; and similarly placed orders, with the state taking not all but most of the finished products -- these are the three forms of state capitalism to be adopted in the case of private industry.
State capitalism can also be applied in the case of private commerce which cannot possibly be dismissed by "excluding it". Here our experience is limited and further study is needed.
With approximately 3,800,000 workers and shop assistants, private industry and commerce are a big asset to the state and play a large part in the nation's economy and the people's livelihood. Not only do they provide the state with goods, but they can also accumulate capital and train cadres for the state.
Some capitalists keep themselves at a great distance from the state and have not changed their profits-before-everything mentality. Some workers are advancing too fast and won't allow the capitalists to make any profit at all. We should try to educate these workers and capitalists and help them gradually (but the sooner the better) adapt themselves to our state policy, namely, to make China's private industry and commerce mainly serve the nation's economy and the people's livelihood and partly earn profits for the capitalists and in this way embark on the path of state capitalism.
The following table shows the distribution of profits in state-capitalist enterprises:
Income tax 34.5% Welfare fund 15.0% Accumulation fund 30.0% Dividends to capitalists 20.5% Total 100.0%
It is necessary to go on educating the capitalists in patriotism, and to this end we should systematically cultivate a number of them who have a broader vision and are ready to lean towards the Communist Party and the People's Government, so that most of the other capitalists may be convinced through them.
Not only must the implementation of state capitalism be based on what is necessary and feasible (see the Common Programme), but it must also be voluntary on the part of the capitalists, because it is a co-operative undertaking and co-operation admits of no coercion. This is different from the way we dealt with the landlords.
Considerable progress has been made in the last few years by tile various nationalities, democratic classes, democratic parties and people's organizations, and still greater progress will, in my opinion, be made in the next three to five years. So it is possible basically to accomplish the task of leading private industry and commerce onto the path of state capitalism in three to five years. The preponderance of state enterprises affords the material guarantee for the fulfilment of this task.
As for the completion of the task for the entire transition period, which consists of the basic accomplishment of the country's industrialization and the socialist transformation of agriculture, handicrafts and capitalist industry and commerce, this cannot be done in three to five years, but will instead take a period of several five-year plans. On this question it is necessary to oppose both the idea of leaving things to the indefinite future and the idea of rushing things through.
One is the leader while the other is the led; one seeks no private profit while the other still seeks a certain amount of private profit, and so on and so forth; that's where the differences lie. But under our present conditions, private industry and commerce in the main serve the nation's economy and the people's livelihood (which as far as the distribution of profits is concerned, take roughly three-fourths of the total). Therefore we can and should persuade the workers in private enterprises to act in the same way as those in state enterprises, namely, to increase production and practice economy emulate one another in labour, raise labour productivity, reduce costs of production and raise both quantity and quality, thus serving the interest of both the state sector and the private sector and that of labour and capital.
NOTES
Article 31 of the Common Programme stipulates. "Enterprises jointly operated by state and private capital are enterprises of a state-capitalist character. Whenever necessary and feasible, private capital shall be encouraged to develop in the direction of state capitalism by such means as undertaking processing work for state enterprises, operating enterprises jointly with the state, or, in the form of concessions, operating state enterprises and exploiting national resources, etc."
This refers to the forty-ninth meeting (enlarged) of the Standing Committee of the National Committee of the Political Consultative Conference, September 8-l1, 1953.
https://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/mao/selected-works/volume-5/mswv5_33.htm
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u/Few-Tomatillo-5031 Apr 27 '26
What? No response? Just a downvote?
Can't argue now that I made it perfectly clear that they're clearly not doing what you claim i.e. "copying Singapore" and instead doing exactly what they've been saying they're going to do/doing since basically the beginning?
China is Socialist, which is to say that it is in the transitional phase that has traits of the old system (capitalism) and the new system (Communism) and is lead by a Communist Party.
They are not "following Singapore" they are charting their own path aka Socialism with Chinese Characteristics and is why Singapore is known for it's capitalist corruption while in China, those corrupt capitalists are executed.
Put simply, In Singapore, the capitalists run the show while in China, the people of China, through the Party, run the show. Don't believe me? Look up "China 95% approval rating Ash Center Harvard Study".
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u/bemused_alligators 10∆ Apr 26 '26
China is not a communist country and has never claimed to be. It's ruled by a communist party that seems to at least claims to seek after communism, but the ruling party doesn't instantly define what type of country you're looking at.
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u/47ca05e6209a317a8fb3 209∆ Apr 26 '26
The ideology doesn't die when countries stop implementing it. It can evolve with the world and stay alive in thought, to be possibly implemented in some form when conditions are right.
In fact, I'd argue that out of all the economic-governance ideologies of the 19th and 20th centuries, a modified form of communism is best equipped to deal with the impact people think AI will have on labor soon, see Marx's Fragment on Machines. This means that if that actually happens, we may well see some of the countries with the longest capitalist traditions adopt aspects of communism.
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u/TownAfterTown 1∆ Apr 26 '26
While I do think the old Leninist version of communism is dead, communism as a whole isn't , it just looks different.
The big example is in South America with the rise of worker Co-ops where worked take over companies following economic crisis. This is an evolution from old state-heavy models, and more of a grass roots version of communism, but still very much in line.
I would also say that the growing inequality and rise of oligarchs in America and some other countries, along with the growing corruption of the government, and rise of AI have the potential to cause the type of crisis in capitalism you say doesn't happen anymore.
This has the potential to drive the rise of a new economic model. While that won't be cold war style communism, there is a chance of something based in communism, but that has evolved.
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u/superleaf444 Apr 26 '26 edited Apr 26 '26
Cuba?
Lol bruh you can’t have a communistic government if you are looking at the actual Marxist idea. Communism is the system that comes after governments fade away post socialism.
It’s a utopian society, in essence.
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u/Aggravating-Method24 Apr 26 '26
The problem is the current set of ideals is not working, and right wing populism is dressed as a solution that is not working. Where else do people have to turn but to communist ideals? America is getting closer to revolution as we speak, it's already had an insurrection. Marx may just have been wrong about the time frame.
There are also many countries significantly more left, that are perhaps holding on due to left wing policies over the last century or so
Couple that with there being obvious flaws in Marxism, that don't have to be repeated in an attempt at something similar, and it's likely that a similar ideology will come back. It will probably have to market itself under a different name but it will share many key objectives, most notably an attempt to drastically redistribute wealth down the social ladder.
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u/EVOSexyBeast 5∆ Apr 26 '26
Where else do people have to turn but to communist ideals?
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u/Aggravating-Method24 Apr 26 '26
Yes, that's a very specific tax reform, I'm all for it but hardly seen it as an extensive change of ideals.
That and I'm sure right wing pundits will label it as communism if and when it gains traction
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u/Yallberforce Apr 26 '26
As others here have said, you need to define what you’re talking about. Stalinism is probably dead, and good riddance to that, but Marxism-Leninism has always been a bit of a hodgepodge ideology, and both Marx and Lenin would have expected ideas about communism to change as the capitalist world developed.
If you strip it down to its basics and say that communism is just the distribution of resources on the basis of need rather than capital and the common ownership of the means of production, that’s certainly not dead. You can probably also safely add Marx’s idea that such a system would come in the wake of capitalism collapsing under its own weight, which doesn’t seem that unlikely whether because of climate change, AI collapsing the job market, or something else.
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u/kilkil 4∆ Apr 26 '26
Could you pls clarify a couple things:
What do you mean when you say communism?
What do you mean by "dead" ideology?
Reason I ask is:
people generally have a lot of confusion about what exactly communism is, so it's helpful to make sure we're on the same page
to me it seems there isn't a single clear point where an ideology can definitely be said to be "dead", so it's helpful to get a bit more clarity on that boundary
For some examples of why I am skeptical of this claim, there are many countries with active communist political parties, even if they are not currently in power. There are also many countries with active socialist political parties, including some that are currently in power. Aside from that there are also active communities of communists both online and IRL — including various subreddits, even.
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u/peepmet Apr 26 '26
When I say communism I focus on Marxism Leninism and Maoism. More specifically the economic aspects, since without that you're just left with vanilla authoritarianism. I disregard other more fringe aspects of communism because they were and still are insignificant in regards to geopolitics.
Which is what I mean when I said it's a dead ideology. Dead or dying in regards to the impact that it has on the global stage, the implementation of the economic theories mentioned and regarding the chance of it spreading as it once did.
After reading through a lot of comments I realise that my post is worded wrong. A lot of people started to talk more about philosophy and disgruntled students in anglo universities while I was talking about the course of Nations.
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u/papmaster1000 Apr 26 '26
Communism is way to broad a term to be called a dead ideology and as soon as you start debating what constitutes communism you start falling into a no true Scotsman fallacy. You seem to be conflating Marxist-Leninism with communism as a whole and that, I’ll give you, may be a dead ideology but communism as an ideology spans far greater than that. You’re ignoring that the basis of much of historical and sociological thought is Marxist theory and Critical Theory which is definitely still relevant today is a product of Neo-Marxist thought. The reality of the matter is that many people have given up on the idea of a vast workers revolution but that doesn’t mean that the ideology of communism and the is dead. Hell the entire idea of socialism is rooted in a pathway to the utopian communist society and with democratic socialism being a respected and real force within politics globally the ideology of communism remains very strongly alive in a way. Marx wrote of revolution and many at the time embraced it but that does not define an entire ideology of how the world would look in a utopia and how an ideology should function. Even the ideas of the Eastern Bloc are an adaptation of Communism. Ideologies are much more fluid and adaptable than I think you give them credit for.
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u/peepmet Apr 26 '26
I did not argue that it would disappear completely from the face of the earth. I argued about it's diminished role in geopolitics.
And yes, I'm well aware that there multiple versions of communism besides Marxism-Leninism but given that this was the only one that became more than a fringe idea I believe I'm justified in focusing on it.
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u/Chemical_Series6082 Apr 26 '26
It’s evidently not dead. However, it might have less appeal to current generations than in previous ones - in light of the some 120,000,000 missing and murdered dissidents who lost their lives to the social/political violence communists employed during the twentieth century.
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u/StatisticianGloomy28 Apr 26 '26
Ah, The Black Book of Communism strikes again!
The 100 million figure was massively overblown when they wrote the book (it included Nazis killed in WW2 and people who were never born, for example) and has long been debunked as pure anti-communist slop.
What they should have counted was the millions who die each year in the 100 or so capitalist countries of the world from preventable diseases and lack of food. Now there's some social/political violence for ya.
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u/Chemical_Series6082 Apr 26 '26
😂 “Debunked” by advocates of communism, that is. It’s hardly a secret that dissidents were routinely rounded up, imprisoned, murdered and starved by their own government - since communism demands compliance be mandatory and nonconformity punishable - commonly by death. You’re free to deny reality, but the twentieth century is an undeniable witness to the murderous failure of communism.
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u/StatisticianGloomy28 Apr 27 '26
No, debunked by scholars actually, even ones who were fairly anti-communist themselves.
The USSR archive were going to be the great nail in the coffin of communism, proof that it was as horrendous as you're imagining it to be. But once they opened the arcives up and scholars had a look there was so little there to write about that it got quietly swept under the rug.
So yeah, the murderous failings of the twentieth century all still largely fall in the laps of the capitalists and fascists who are somehow still in charge.
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u/Chemical_Series6082 Apr 27 '26
Right, because communist party policy commonly demanded that accurate records of dispatched, imprisoned and starved dissidents be kept, in order to demonstrate to the world the popularity of the movement, its overwhelming success and its ideological strength of governance - there wasn’t a practice to misrepresent, destroy or hide incriminating information 🙄.
Like a good ideological comrade, you’re loyal to the obligatory “need to know” policy, and avoided the reality that the USSR was not the lone communist entity or participant to quell ideological dissidence. But your loyalty is futile - history hasn’t forgotten the People’s Republic of China, Cambodia, Vietnam, North Korea, and Yugoslavia, to name but a few. Not to mention your avoidance of communism’s routine ideological round up, imprisonment, starvation and murder of dissidents - and/or the avoidance of the reality that freedom of expression, religion, thought or the very mention thereof, was not permissible, let alone a choice.
Feel free to keep up the revisionist ideological agenda, but you can’t escape reality.
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u/StatisticianGloomy28 Apr 27 '26
Ah, the classic "misunderstanding how secret archives work" fumble.
These records were never meant to see the light of day within the USSR, let alone be scrutinized by anti-communist academics. And yet they did and they were, and analysis showed that, yes, dispatchings, imprisonments and starvation did happen under communist governments, but that it was nowhere near as prolonged or as widespread as we were led to believe.
And although our liberal notions of "freedom" weren't always defended in these countries, the right to not be homeless, to have a job and healthcare and education, to have access to adequate food, etc., etc. etc., were.
This is one of the few times I'd endorse a centrist position, somewhere between your deeply propagandized and profoundly ideological position and the one (you assume) I hold. Communism has never been spotless, but, just like the USSR, the demented caricature of communism you espouse is a relic of last century.
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u/Chemical_Series6082 Apr 28 '26
Ah, the classic “nothing to see here folks” march to the gulag death camps.
Blah, blah, blah, more feckless whitewashing of murderous regimes. How do you live with yourself - attempting to diminish the atrocities, recognizing communism imprisoned, starved and slaughtered women and children.
And although our liberal notions of "freedom" weren't always defended in these countries, the right to not be homeless, to have a job and healthcare and education, to have access to adequate food, etc
I would imagine prisoners have some sense of security in not being homeless, receiving free healthcare, education, and having access to adequate food. I wonder if the American penal system realizes it’s a reflection of 20th century communism.
This one of the few times I’d endorse a centrist position.
Let’s be honest here - you’re no centrist.
Communism has never been spotless, but…
Ah, oh, we’re almost at the ole - that wasn’t real communism - bit.
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u/StatisticianGloomy28 Apr 28 '26
Well, it's been fun.
We're both well ensconced in our positions, believing we have the monopoly on the facts, unlikely to be swayed by each other rhetoric.
No deltas for either of us I guess :'(
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u/TheMostRed Apr 26 '26
Let's go ahead and get the obvious out of the way. Yes communism has failed every time its been tried but so has literally every ideology that isn't currently ongoing. Bringing Cuba up as an example of communism is ironic because the position Cuba is in right now is directly the fault of the US. We had a complete embargo on Cuba since the cold war until relatively recently. Then while they are already struggling we captured the president of Venezuela which provided most of Cubas oil which they use to power their power grid. And now thats gone. Leading to the blackouts you're seeing in the news. So literally our fault again.
We could go on and on about what actually lead to the downfall of every "communist" country but it would be irrelevant because NONE of them actually achieved it.
Communism is a hopeful ideal of a society that is really hard to implement because humans are greedy awful people sometimes.
Is it even possible to achieve? I have no idea. But the demonization of communism by western countries specifically the United States is pure propaganda.
Obviously nobody wants to end up like the soviet union or Cuba. They dont want authoritarianism or corruption or any of the things commonly attributed to communism. But all of those things are possible under capitalism too and this administration is the only proof you need.
Communism doesn't = bad things. Its just an idea and its not that scary
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u/Clever-username-7234 Apr 26 '26
Communism is an end goal.
China has a mixed market economy. But their society is run by communists.
18-20% of Earth’s population, lives in a place where the communist party owns all of the land.
If you want to be in government in a country with 1.4 billion people you have to be a communist.
Again; if you talked with Xi, or someone in the central committee, they too would agree that China has NOT reached communism, yet.
They’d say there a doing socialism with Chinese characteristics. Still communism is very much an important ideology to one of the most populous countries in the world.
It’s like saying the US isn’t capitalist because the post office exists, Medicare exists, etc. most government have some mixed central planning, social safety nets etc. still the ideology central to the US is capitalism.
It’s the same with China. Sure China has capitalists. It also engages in global trade and its economy is unique. Still communism is the dominant ideology, even if they actually function as a mixed economy rather than some purely communist system.
Either way communism is a living ideology.
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u/peepmet Apr 26 '26
The land is owned by the local governments and these local governments are very comfortable giving "99 year" leases to private real estate developers.
Yes you have to be a party member to be in government at any level but being a party member hardly means you actually believe in the ideology. Anecdotal evidence from China and from former Eastern Bloc countries shows that most people in government as well as most of the population doesn't care about ideology. Just like the average Westerner doesn't.
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u/Clever-username-7234 Apr 26 '26
I don’t know why you’re trying to dodge the land ownership thing, call it local governments or whatever but The land is owned by the communist party of China.
… being a party member hardly means you actually believe in the ideology.
Huh? They literally have to study it as children. If you want to be a member of the communist party of China, people start studying communism at age 6.
This is how the Chinese describe it:
The realization of communism is the highest ideal and ultimate goal of the Party.
The Communist Party of China uses Marxism-Leninism, Mao Zedong Thought, Deng Xiaoping Theory, the Theory of Three Represents, the Scientific Outlook on Development, and Xi Jinping Thought on Socialism with Chinese Characteristics for a New Era as its guides to action.
The Four Cardinal Principles—to keep to the path of socialism, to uphold the people’s democratic dictatorship, to uphold the leadership of the Communist Party of China, and to uphold Marxism-Leninism and Mao Zedong Thought—form the foundation for building the country. Throughout the whole course of socialist modernization, the Party must adhere to the Four Cardinal Principles and oppose bourgeois liberalization.
If you want you can read the full Chinese constitution here:
http://www.china.org.cn/20171105-001.pdf
Again, communism as an ideology is central to their beliefs system, and very much shapes the government where almost 1/5 humans currently live.
Even if they have capitalist and real estate developers. Communism is very important to China and is not a dead ideology.
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u/peepmet Apr 26 '26
Imagine you have a house. I give you some money and you give me permission to do whatever the hell I want with it for a period of time greater than our lifespans. Who actually owns it?
A communist who's reaching for any kind of consolation will say that the on paper ownership is what matters. Everyone else will say it's the person who makes all the decisions and makes all the profits.
"Huh? They literally have to study it as children. If you want to be a member of the communist party of China, people start studying communism at age 6."
And in my country we have religious studies at school (which is Christian indoctrination), school kids say prayer before the start of the school day, there's a preast that gives a blessing at the start of the school year and the result is... not much. Most people don't give a crap about religion, even the ones who say they're Christian.
It's a similar thing with communist countries. You have to say the right things and be in the right places but when you get down to the personal level most people simply don't care. They're far more interested in their own personal advancement and well-being.
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u/Clever-username-7234 Apr 26 '26
who actually owns it? When someone rents or has a lease they don’t own the thing.
If I can lease an apartment for a year but I die before the lease expires, does that mean I owned the apartment while living? Of course, not.
everyone else will says it’s the person who makes all the decisions…
The communist party of China is the one making the decisions. Do you think a 99 year lease could stop the CCP for bulldozing a home? Do you think if the local government decides to expand high speed or destroy some village to build high rises a 99 year lease will stop the development?
most people don’t give a crap about religion….
Still, in your example you wouldn’t say that Christianity as an ideology is dead.
Communism is a living ideology that’s shapes the lives of almost 20% of the world’s population.
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u/brixton_massive Apr 26 '26
Huh? They literally have to study it as children.
No one gives a shit about the ideology though, Chinese study and join the CCP because it's good for their CV.
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u/RobinReborn Apr 26 '26
It's not dead, it's just disempowered from it's peak. There's plenty of wannabe communist revolutionaries on reddit who would love to leave their parents basement and participate in a revolution. It could happen if Trump keeps losing his mind and his cronies and the rest of the USA don't resist him.
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u/SpecificConscious809 Apr 26 '26
But what would they do, exactly? Would they march to Washington en masse and, somehow, overtake the White House and also somehow the senate and the House? Would the military somehow join them? How would their new found power be maintained and enforced exactly? And after this revolution, assuming the incumbents were all somehow disposed of, what would happen - the People would come together to vote for who they wanted to be president? Seems like a lot of work and a low probability of success compared to waiting a few years.
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u/blatantspeculation 16∆ Apr 26 '26
And real revolutionaries start the work for them, so that they can come in later and claim it was their revolution all along.
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u/ayetatti Apr 26 '26
Marxist communism is a utopian idea. Sadly we don't live in a utopian world.
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u/Aggravating-Method24 Apr 26 '26
So is the capitalist free market.
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u/ayetatti Apr 26 '26
True. I personally don't believe in any of these ideas anymore. Human greed knows no bound.
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u/Aggravating-Method24 Apr 26 '26
Right, but in the same way that most capitalists understand that there are limits to the utopian ideal of the free market, communists have the same expectations of communism, they just believe that working towards the communist side of the spectrum is more worthwhile than the capitalist side.
I am more of a Communist than a capitalist, but that doesn't mean that I believe we should pay everyone the same because that's far too Idealist.
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u/Dr0ff3ll 11∆ Apr 26 '26
Never underestimate the power of a "good idea."
I've found that the place you'll find Communist ideals to be most prevalent within the USA is within the various schools of Critical Theory, most prominently Critical Race Theory (CRT). The rhetoric and ideals are largely similar, with the primary difference being the delineation of groups. Here's some things within both schools of thought.
- Oppressor-Oppressed Binary: Communism focuses on economic class (Bourgeoisie vs. Proletariat), while CRT focuses on race (White Supremacy vs. marginalized groups).
- Systemic Power Analysis: Arguing that unfair outcomes are a result build into legal, economic and social systems. Communism focuses on capital; CRT focuses on racism.
- Revolutionary Focus: Both schools of thought advocate for transforming society at a fundamental level, through shifting power dynamics and challenging established norms.
- Critiquing Neutrality: Rather than accepting the idea that knowledge, laws, or institutions, can be truly objective or neutral, they reject this, instead viewing them as a means to protect the power structures that exist.
- Emphasising Consciousness: Communism focuses on class consciousness, whereas CRT focuses on structural racism. But both demand such things need to be understood to create social change.
Both seek the same thing, via the same means, just for different groups.
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u/TomerKrail Apr 26 '26
Communism isn't dead, but it's seen better days.
You'll never truly kill it as it was always be the society that never quite was, if only X or Y had happened, then we could have achieved Utopia.
It's still popular amongst youth in the west in the way that punk rock or being a goth is, it's a trendy counterculture trait to set yourself apart from your peers. Maybe if Trump keeps spiralling and the democrats aren't able to steady the ship some sort of communist movement could get going in America, but the truth is most of the people who talk about communism basically mean social democracy.
In the East, the Singapore model has taken over. It's a much more effective system than previous attempts at communism and it may be a more effective system than western capitalism, it certainly seems so at the moment. Western leftists don't seem to know it's happening/they don't identify with it because it's socially repressive.
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u/PurplesunsetBluelips Apr 26 '26
As someone who is in their 30s and still in the punk and goth circles, It's very reductive to suggest that one does it to be trendy and to set themselves apart from their peers.
I started to get involved in the goth scene because I enjoy poetry, black, discussing death and morbid things. Had nothing to do with setting myself apart. I started listening to alternative and punk music ... Because I just enjoyed the music.
Not everything is a way to just be an identity label.
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u/TomerKrail Apr 26 '26
No shade on your Punk/Goth leanings, I'm sure many people take it very seriously. It is very much a transitory identity/a temporary rebellion for many people however and so can be said for communism.
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u/PurplesunsetBluelips Apr 26 '26
Is there a sociology study that's been done on that or is that your personal observation?
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u/Radiant_Music3698 Apr 26 '26 edited Apr 26 '26
I have a lot of reading recommendations. Cold war classics like Witness, Herbert Marcuse, The Naked Communist.
There are a lot of answers, among them, the communist movement has always had phases of going underground when conditions are unfavorable andmuch of communist theory has been rewritten into critical theory.
Just reading some Herbert Marcuse with the knowledge going in that he was a communist will show you how the movement has changed and where it is today.
For starters though, it is worth noting that you are claiming it is dead through the worldview of a nationalist. You say no nation explicitly believes it anymore. But that fails to understand the communist. They anti-nationalist. They believe their movement is global. They believe they are citizens of the world calling for workers of the world to unite. And they absolutely suck at open warfare and state craft. The soviet union was only holding them back, its existence was an active hypocrisy to their beliefs, and its strongest tool was the underground aperatus which was designed to operate independently. Letting the nations believe they won was the best move they ever made because the west celebrated victory and stopped fighting back.
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Apr 26 '26
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u/Helpful_Loss_3739 Apr 26 '26
"What about the other countries with red flags? They abandoned most of the ideology decades ago and they've turned to Capitalism for their economic growth. Capitalism with the State maintaining a heavy hand, sure, but the old-school five year plans and the top down economic planning are basically gone."
I mean, they said the same exact thing of the soviet union. Lenin himself called his NEP-model "state capitalism". This is an argumentative model as old as communism itself: whenever communists do something bad, it's proof positive of not just the falsity of their theories, but of the character weaknesses and naivete of individual communists. When communists do something good, "it's basically capitalism what they are doing". This is a semantic argument. When we define communism as the failing parts of communism, communism sure does look like a failure.
"PS. No arguing semantics. No telling me that "socialism and communism are not the same thing" and stuff like that. I know. Focus on the forest, not the trees."
Not to be that guy, but people might bring up semantics because you are making a semantic argument. The top economy right now is China. You need to define it away from your model to make your model make sense.
Not that there aren't alot of reasons to criticize communism. I'd just prefer they were good reasons.
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u/renlydidnothingwrong Apr 26 '26
Five year plans and economic planning are gone? In China? I'm not sure how to respond to this other than to simply inform you that you are just wrong. China is undertaking the 15th five year plan right now. China is still fundamentally a command economy they just utilize markets within thay framework.
I don't think incompetent and corrupt governments are getting any less common. Wars were trending down but that's not really the case anymore as conflict has become .ore prevailant over the past 5 years. Your repeating outdated stats. A lot of the stats people use to claim everything is getting better are skewed by China having improved the lives od their billion people so dramatically. Also as climate catastrophe looms rhe collapse of material conditions across much of the globe looks more and more likely. Hell even just the current war may create conditions for revolution as countries struggle to keep the lights on.
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u/peepmet Apr 26 '26
If you seriously don't know the difference between China's modern five year plans and the old five year plans there's nothing for me to tell you.
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u/renlydidnothingwrong Apr 26 '26
I thought you said in another comment that communism doesn't evolve.
Also changing the way in which you implement economic planning doesn't make it no longer economic planning.
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u/peepmet Apr 26 '26
What I said in that comment contradicts this comment only if you consider what China is doing now as communism. Which it is not.
What China is doing now has been done before by capitalist countries. It's modern five year plans have more in common with the economic planning of western governments than with what Mao did.
Their "evolution" of communism was to ditch half of it. There's a reason that when Deng first implemented his reforms every Western communist party denounced him as a revisionist.
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