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There's no way we have space here to do the whole debate, but for starters, the Soviet Union wasn't communist by any reasonable definition. Wikipedia does a qui

There's no way we have space here to do the whole debate, but for starters, the Soviet Union wasn't communist by any reasonable definition. Wikipedia does a quick breakdown: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Communism#Associated_usage_and_communist_states https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Communism#Associated_usage_and... > While the term Communist state is used by Western historians, political scientists, and news media to refer to countries ruled by Communist parties, these states themselves did not describe themselves as communist or claim to have achieved communism: they referred to themselves as socialist states that are in the process of constructing communism If we use genuine definitions of "communism" and leave to the side Red Scare American political non-definitions, we'd agree with the USSR when it doesn't call itself communist. We can happily disagree with them on their assertion that they were "in the process of constructing communism," the same we can disagree with the PRC's assertion that it's still doing the same today. If you want to say something sucks, blame the Soviet-type economic planning model: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soviet-type_economic_planning https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soviet-type_economic_planning which featured absurd layers of bureaucracy that would result in, yes, the means of production being seized... and then misused by "intellectual party leaders" that thought they knew better than the people who, say, had been farming the land for hundreds of years, resulting in famine, or the other not-fun things about living in the USSR. To your point, I can find absolutely no evidence that the USSR "seized" the game from Pajitnov. Do you have some? There was no intellectual property in the USSR, I'm not even sure what "seized" means in this context. Sure, he wasn't allowed to "sell" it in the Soviet Union, but it wouldn't really make sense in their economic system to "sell" the game. He was apparently nationally and internationally known for the creation, but it seems renown wasn't enough, he wanted commercial success as well, hence the emigration to the USA in the 90s. I push back because listen to the story of how it was introduced, as interpreted by Wikipedia: > Pajitnov had completed the first playable version of Tetris by June 6, 1984.[21] Pajitnov presented Tetris to his colleagues, who quickly became addicted to it.[15]: 87 It permeated the offices within the Academy of Sciences, and within a few weeks it reached every Moscow institute with a computer. A friend of Pajitnov, Vladimir Pokhilko, who requested the game for the Moscow Medical Institute, saw people stop working to play Tetris. Pokhilko eventually banned the game from the Medical Institute to restore productivity. Does this remind you of MIT Artificial Intelligence Laboratory around the same era? How much of what we love to use today has similar origin stories, and brought their creators no commercial success at all? Gnu, the linux kernel, the core of most of our industry is built on libre software developed in this manner in that time. Why immediately jump to the assumption "no capitalistic success = bad?"

lIl-IIIl 4y ago
The most common definition of a communist country is a country that is run by communists. Communists are members of the Communist party, usually the only party in the country. A communist country is not usually meant to mean a country that achieved communism. Similarly, casual phrases like "life under communism", which are used by the populace in communist countries themselves, mean "life when communists are/were in control". Since no country achieved communism there's usually no reason to disambiguate.
- komali2 4y ago
  I understand where you're coming from, but there is a very strong reason to disambiguate, for leftist theorists: plenty of us still want to strive for a communist society, which we view as the best way to organize ourselves. It's perfectly understandable that one of the mechanisms used against this philosophical and political ideology is the modification of language to win rhetorical battles, but... we're going to push back lol. Let's try this and see if you can relate: America is actually a socialist country. Between farm, airline, and oil and gas subsidies, oligopolies defended by regulation, and the seizing of the assets of society for the bailing out of banks, the American economic system is a far cry from capitalism. All the innovations that came from this economic system called American socialism we can attribute to this firm socialist organization of production and consumption. America is successful and a good place to live, more countries should strive for socialism. Surely you see how frustrating this would be? Thus how many leftists feel when we argue for concepts we like about communism as it has actually been defined for centuries vs the rhetorical twisting done through necessity by Stalinists, Maoists, and McCarthyists (all in different directions, mind you). It becomes much harder for us to have conversations about the actual merits and values of a given system. To whit: how can we describe a society that's achieved our goals of communism, if we use the same word to describe a society that's the opposite of our goals? Ignoring tankies for a second who have lost themselves in the sauce and pretend that the Soviet Union wasn't plagued by famine or that somehow the PRC is a socialist paradise despite the fact that they still pay for healthcare, can you see how difficult it is when I say "I want the shared resources of society to be leveraged to provide for people's basic needs, and for workers to be empowered to enjoy the full fruits of their own production, I want communism," and for two different people to say "You want communism? So you want (repeats definition of fascism)" or "You want communism? You want (repeats definition of capitalism)". I get tired of words losing their meaning. If living int he PRC is "living under communism," what shall we call a system with common ownership of the means of production (the State, made of unelected officials, owns much of the industry in the PRC, but, some of it is privately owned by billionaires), no private property (the PRC has this in many ways, especially when owned by corporations), no social classes (the PRC has massive income divide and insurmountable socio-economic classes and poverty traps like much of the modern world), no money (the PRC runs plenty of international banks, and the basic needs of citizens are still paid in cash), and no State (need I explain the power of the State in the PRC)? Because that's what communism is, so I have no idea how to even have a conversation when the word is made to mean something else entirely. Say it can't be achieved, say it's unrealistic, say it can only be achieved if xyz horrible thing happens, that's totally fine, that's an interesting conversation to have, but we can't have that conversation if we can't even settle terms.

lIl-IIIl 4y ago

The most common definition of a communist country is a country that is run by communists. Communists are members of the Communist party, usually the only party in the country. A communist country is not usually meant to mean a country that achieved communism. Similarly, casual phrases like "life under communism", which are used by the populace in communist countries themselves, mean "life when communists are/were in control". Since no country achieved communism there's usually no reason to disambiguate.

komali2 4y ago
I understand where you're coming from, but there is a very strong reason to disambiguate, for leftist theorists: plenty of us still want to strive for a communist society, which we view as the best way to organize ourselves. It's perfectly understandable that one of the mechanisms used against this philosophical and political ideology is the modification of language to win rhetorical battles, but... we're going to push back lol. Let's try this and see if you can relate: America is actually a socialist country. Between farm, airline, and oil and gas subsidies, oligopolies defended by regulation, and the seizing of the assets of society for the bailing out of banks, the American economic system is a far cry from capitalism. All the innovations that came from this economic system called American socialism we can attribute to this firm socialist organization of production and consumption. America is successful and a good place to live, more countries should strive for socialism. Surely you see how frustrating this would be? Thus how many leftists feel when we argue for concepts we like about communism as it has actually been defined for centuries vs the rhetorical twisting done through necessity by Stalinists, Maoists, and McCarthyists (all in different directions, mind you). It becomes much harder for us to have conversations about the actual merits and values of a given system. To whit: how can we describe a society that's achieved our goals of communism, if we use the same word to describe a society that's the opposite of our goals? Ignoring tankies for a second who have lost themselves in the sauce and pretend that the Soviet Union wasn't plagued by famine or that somehow the PRC is a socialist paradise despite the fact that they still pay for healthcare, can you see how difficult it is when I say "I want the shared resources of society to be leveraged to provide for people's basic needs, and for workers to be empowered to enjoy the full fruits of their own production, I want communism," and for two different people to say "You want communism? So you want (repeats definition of fascism)" or "You want communism? You want (repeats definition of capitalism)". I get tired of words losing their meaning. If living int he PRC is "living under communism," what shall we call a system with common ownership of the means of production (the State, made of unelected officials, owns much of the industry in the PRC, but, some of it is privately owned by billionaires), no private property (the PRC has this in many ways, especially when owned by corporations), no social classes (the PRC has massive income divide and insurmountable socio-economic classes and poverty traps like much of the modern world), no money (the PRC runs plenty of international banks, and the basic needs of citizens are still paid in cash), and no State (need I explain the power of the State in the PRC)? Because that's what communism is, so I have no idea how to even have a conversation when the word is made to mean something else entirely. Say it can't be achieved, say it's unrealistic, say it can only be achieved if xyz horrible thing happens, that's totally fine, that's an interesting conversation to have, but we can't have that conversation if we can't even settle terms.