The two tend to go hand-in-hand because communism - in its most popular formulations anyway - encourages consolidation of power in the state, "Dictatorship of the Proletariat" and all.
To clarify what I meant, Marxism and its descendants (Marxism-Leninism, Stalinism, Maoism, Juche, etc.) are the most “popular” forms of communism. By which I mean: they’re what was implemented in most (all?) countries that had communists seize power - the USSR, China, Cambodia, Vietnam, North Korea, Cuba, and so on. In university we read Marx, not Bakunin; in Canada we have a Marxism-Leninism party, not an anarcho-communist party. Etc.
If you’re asking the latter question in good faith, I’d encourage you to consult Wikipedia; it has good articles on both the term “proletariat” and Marx’s phrase “dictatorship of the proletariat”.
Marx argued the Dictatorship of the Proletariat was an essential part of the transition to "true communism". I think it's fair to say that if X is an essential part of actualizing Y, X "goes hand-in-hand" with Y, regardless of whether or not Y itself when fully actualized (if that's possible) means to incorporate X.
About the most important tenet of communism is collectivism. When you attempt collectivization on a national level, there's always a significant portion of the population who doesn't want to play along and wants to keep doing their own thing. That's the end of the road for your political system unless you do a bit of mass murder, which is why every "successful" communist state resorted to that.
So yes, of course, no political ideology has "let's murder millions of people" as its founding principle. But some political systems require it.
or you let them be hermits that they are. No need to murder people. If they don't fit in with the collectivism then they are shunned from society. Much like social media.
It's important to remember the Anti-Comintern Pact started as an anti-communist agreement between Germany and Japan. Look what that did.
Authoritarianism. And there's a huge argument to be made that communist states were and are corrupted not by their principles but by the pressure capitalist states place on them.
And to be clear so I don't get dogpiled and dox'd for this later. I don't think that excuses the blood that was shed. I do not think a state has a right to terrorize it's populace into submission, regardless of the ideological motivations for doing so.
I'd like to see that argument. Russia pre-WWII and Mao's China don't seem to me to have much capitalist pressure against them, yet Stalin and Mao killed millions. Stalin's purges were internal, against people who were on his bad side. Now, you could say that maybe Western spies agitated, but there's no way that Western agitation would account for millions of people. Furthermore, in 1930, the Communist system was widely seen as successful, since initial food production in the USSR was strongly up. Mao's deaths were incompetence (famine: killing sparrows, resulting in sparrows not eating insects the next year; famine: misallocation of resources, causing starvation in Sichuan when enough food existed elsewhere; Cultural Revolution: Mao's reaction to losing his grip on power). I think China was so poor that it realistically did not interact with the rest of the world, but in WWII, the US actually helped the Communists.
Every other Communist state that I am aware of also killed millions in internal purges: Cambodia and N. Korea, notably. I'm actually not sure what happened with Vietnam and Cuba. I'm not sure if contemporary Venezuela counts as Communist, but I am under the impression that there was killing or at least persecution of internal political enemies. I don't see how US sanctions have anything to do with how one treats political enemies.
I guess Eastern Europe might be an exception, but I think that is because Communist states were imposed with external force, not revolution from within, and the population mostly capitulated. However, I believe that political opposition was still likely to be deadly.
Since Communist states seem to be highly correlated with killing internal enemies, it seems like a feature of the system, not a response to external pressure, particularly since the largest two did not have serious external pressure at the time.
The two tend to go hand-in-hand because communism - in its most popular formulations anyway - encourages consolidation of power in the state, "Dictatorship of the Proletariat" and all.
where is that popular, and what is a proletariat?
To clarify what I meant, Marxism and its descendants (Marxism-Leninism, Stalinism, Maoism, Juche, etc.) are the most “popular” forms of communism. By which I mean: they’re what was implemented in most (all?) countries that had communists seize power - the USSR, China, Cambodia, Vietnam, North Korea, Cuba, and so on. In university we read Marx, not Bakunin; in Canada we have a Marxism-Leninism party, not an anarcho-communist party. Etc.
If you’re asking the latter question in good faith, I’d encourage you to consult Wikipedia; it has good articles on both the term “proletariat” and Marx’s phrase “dictatorship of the proletariat”.
true communism has no concept of "The State", what you are describing is authoritarian socialism.
Marx argued the Dictatorship of the Proletariat was an essential part of the transition to "true communism". I think it's fair to say that if X is an essential part of actualizing Y, X "goes hand-in-hand" with Y, regardless of whether or not Y itself when fully actualized (if that's possible) means to incorporate X.
1 reply →
About the most important tenet of communism is collectivism. When you attempt collectivization on a national level, there's always a significant portion of the population who doesn't want to play along and wants to keep doing their own thing. That's the end of the road for your political system unless you do a bit of mass murder, which is why every "successful" communist state resorted to that.
So yes, of course, no political ideology has "let's murder millions of people" as its founding principle. But some political systems require it.
or you let them be hermits that they are. No need to murder people. If they don't fit in with the collectivism then they are shunned from society. Much like social media.
It's important to remember the Anti-Comintern Pact started as an anti-communist agreement between Germany and Japan. Look what that did.
Authoritarianism. And there's a huge argument to be made that communist states were and are corrupted not by their principles but by the pressure capitalist states place on them.
Now we’re talking…
And to be clear so I don't get dogpiled and dox'd for this later. I don't think that excuses the blood that was shed. I do not think a state has a right to terrorize it's populace into submission, regardless of the ideological motivations for doing so.
3 replies →
I'd like to see that argument. Russia pre-WWII and Mao's China don't seem to me to have much capitalist pressure against them, yet Stalin and Mao killed millions. Stalin's purges were internal, against people who were on his bad side. Now, you could say that maybe Western spies agitated, but there's no way that Western agitation would account for millions of people. Furthermore, in 1930, the Communist system was widely seen as successful, since initial food production in the USSR was strongly up. Mao's deaths were incompetence (famine: killing sparrows, resulting in sparrows not eating insects the next year; famine: misallocation of resources, causing starvation in Sichuan when enough food existed elsewhere; Cultural Revolution: Mao's reaction to losing his grip on power). I think China was so poor that it realistically did not interact with the rest of the world, but in WWII, the US actually helped the Communists.
Every other Communist state that I am aware of also killed millions in internal purges: Cambodia and N. Korea, notably. I'm actually not sure what happened with Vietnam and Cuba. I'm not sure if contemporary Venezuela counts as Communist, but I am under the impression that there was killing or at least persecution of internal political enemies. I don't see how US sanctions have anything to do with how one treats political enemies.
I guess Eastern Europe might be an exception, but I think that is because Communist states were imposed with external force, not revolution from within, and the population mostly capitulated. However, I believe that political opposition was still likely to be deadly.
Since Communist states seem to be highly correlated with killing internal enemies, it seems like a feature of the system, not a response to external pressure, particularly since the largest two did not have serious external pressure at the time.