Define God

[pood]

No, it did not.

 

[pood]

Marx had some good ideas, some interesting ideas, some ideas that were not so good, and some ideas that were flat out wrong. The idea that the state would wither away was one his ideas that was simply a badly mistaken conclusion.

Maybe so, but the point is that Soviet Russia and Communist China were not remotely what Marx envisioned.

 

[lostone]

Marx had some good ideas, some interesting ideas, some ideas that were not so good, and some ideas that were flat out wrong. The idea that the state would wither away was one his ideas that was simply a badly mistaken conclusion.

Maybe so, but the point is that Soviet Russia and Communist China were not remotely what Marx envisioned.

Marx did not anticipate that the his ideas would generate political states where the ideological elite that replaced his ruling class became authoritarian dictators.

 

[pood]

The stateless, classless society Marx envisioned may not be possible. But the dictatorship of kleptocrats of the Soviet Union and China was definitely not what he wanted.

 

[pood]

Marx had some good ideas, some interesting ideas, some ideas that were not so good, and some ideas that were flat out wrong. The idea that the state would wither away was one his ideas that was simply a badly mistaken conclusion.

Maybe so, but the point is that Soviet Russia and Communist China were not remotely what Marx envisioned.

Marx did not anticipate that the his ideas would generate political states where the ideological elite that replaced his ruling class became authoritarian dictators.

Exactly.

 

[bilby]

Marx made the exact same error that most utopians do. He thought that his ideas were so obviously good (in the moral sense) that anyone who read them, and then fought for them, would necessarily be a good person.

The idea that someone might see that his ideas were popular with the masses; Understand that spreading his ideas would lead to revolutionary change; And work towards a wide dissemination of his ideas with revolution as their aim, might do so not to eliminate the explotatative class, but merely in order to take their place, doesn't seem to have crossed his mind.

He saw evil exploiters and their downtrodden victims, and thought that those victims, once they threw off their shackles, would want an end to exploitation. To be fair, the majority probably did.

But there were enough (and likely always will be enough) arseholes who just want to switch places with their opressors, to make that idea terribly naïve. Lots of downtrodden people don't dislike aristocracy or oligarchy; They just dislike not being the aristocrats or oligarchs.

And revolutions offer such wannabes the opportunity to sieze that power. So nothing really changes for the better.*

What happens in reality is that you replace an aristocracy that has evolved over time to minimise violent disruption, with one that hasn't yet worked out how to do that.








* Though as observed by Daltrey, Townshend, et al (1971), the beards all get longer overnight.

 

[steve_bank]

^You've made your philosophic choice.

I made a reasoned choice back in the 70s early 80s.

I did not want Marxism and western democracy free market capitalism was preferable even with all the negatives. I opposed communism.

All philosophy, the very thing you say you disdain.

What makes you think the Soviet Union and Communist China of that era had anything to do with … Marxism?

Again putting words in my mouth my ideological friend.

I have a problem with your ideological philosophy as I do with Chrtianity. Narrow minded.

In your philosophical mind what is the basis for this forum to exists and your having the free time to post and read philosophy?

Agricultural and manufacturing efficiency on a large scale. Goods and services creted by free market competition. The computer you use is the result of intense free market competition going back to the 70s. All driven by the profit incentive.

There are positives and negates to free market competition.

Try reading economics instead of dead philosophers.

Of course, what I asked was, and you did not answer was … What makes you think the Soviet Union and Communist China of that era had anything to do with … Marxism?

Leninism and Maoism were off shoots of Marx. Marx advocated violent revolution.

Ina sense Lenin became a moderate, he understood that the boggey wha had the ineffectual power and experience to make things work. Hence the idea of the Vanguard, a communist core that would guide society to a true future communist state.

Karl Marx advocated for the collective ownership of the means of production, which is the core principle of collectivization, as part of his vision for a communist society where workers would control industries and farms for the benefit of all, not just the wealthy. He believed that the large-scale, socialized enterprises under capitalism would ultimately evolve into a full-fledged socialist system where property and wealth were owned and controlled by the community

Communism - collective ownership of means of production'
Capitalism - private ownership of means of production

Collectivization failed catastrophically.

Russia and China promoted global violent overthrow and replacement with communism.

China eventually renounced it. The was FARC and others inn South American running around in black pajamas with AK47s. Maoist rebels.

When he died Lenin won the power struggle and the democracy wing lost. Then came Stalinist purges. There are conspiracy theories as to how Lenin died.

Look up Marxist-Leninism.

Vanguardism - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

Vanguardism, a core concept of Leninism, is the idea that a revolutionary vanguard party, composed of the most conscious and disciplined workers, must lead the proletariat in overthrowing capitalism and establishing socialism, ultimately progressing to communism.

Communist apologists will say Russia and China were not really communism and hang on to the idea.

Read Trotsky's History Of The Russian Revolution, it is in PDF. Read it in the 70s.

Maoism - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

Maoism, officially Mao Zedong Thought,[a] is a variety of Marxism–Leninism that Mao Zedong developed while trying to realize a socialist revolution in the agricultural, pre-industrial society of the Republic of China and later the People's Republic of China. A difference between Maoism and traditional Marxism–Leninism is that a united front of progressive forces in class society would lead the revolutionary vanguard in pre-industrial societies[3] rather than communist revolutionaries alone. This theory, in which revolutionary praxis is primary and ideological orthodoxy is secondary, represents urban Marxism–Leninism adapted to pre-industrial China. Later theoreticians expanded on the idea that Mao had adapted Marxism–Leninism to Chinese conditions, arguing that he had in fact updated it fundamentally and that Maoism could be applied universally throughout the world. This ideology is often referred to as Marxism–Leninism–Maoism to distinguish it from the original ideas of Mao.[4][5][non-primary source needed][6][page needed]

\
Here in the USA communism at frost was seen by iome on the left as utopian, workers living in a workers paradise. Until the reality of Stalinism became known.