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I'm sort of agreeing with you? My point is leftists say communism and mean something different (some leftists don't even consider Stalin a proper communist, Tro
by noobermin 9y ago
I'm sort of agreeing with you? My point is leftists say communism and mean something different (some leftists don't even consider Stalin a proper communist, Trotskyists for example) but people outside use it as a blanket term for the left. Even some in the US call conservative democrats "communists".
Regardless, it's just a word. My point is people commenting don't know the difference anyway, it's best to just read their comment as referring to "those authoritarian states that called themselves communist."
- iguy 9y agoSorry I guess I was replying also to GP "That's not communism, though", who seems to be insisting that "communism" means only the mythical utopia.
- KozmoNau7 9y agoCommunism in its real original meaning, yes. Not the perversions of later tyrannical dictatorships.
- iguy 9y agoWell, the real meaning of words in English is defined by usage. And the English-speaking world spent half a century locked in cold war with an evil empire. That's what the word means. This imaginary utopia which some 19th writer dreamed up, to which said evil empire payed lip service, is a topic for those with special interests in 19th century utopian dreaming.
- KozmoNau7 9y agoThe English-speaking world spent most of a century deeply immersed in anti-socialism/communism propaganda, you mean. This historical revision of "The US and capitalism did nothing wrong" needs to die.
- iguy 9y agoI make no claim that the winning side of this long war were a bunch of saints. I'm just arguing that against confusing the name of the losing side with the name of a famous utopian vision. On propaganda, you may notice that one side's propaganda needed to be backed up at home with a gulag system, while vocal dissent on the other side was not a bar to ivy league tenure.
- dogma1138 9y agoThen they don't understand what they mean, "benign" AKA elective communism can only exist in a free and pluralistic open market society where people have the personal freedom to choose how to live. Trotsky would've been just as bad as Stalin in the end not because he was evil but because an authoritative regime has no other means of asserting power other than force and violence. Which is why under any autocracy even the most "benevolent" ones any challenge to the authority, ideology and core philosophy of the rule must be squashed.