Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[Jreengus]

Anyone ever think that maybe the reason communism wont work is because capitalism wont let it work? After all Russia was a pretty screwed over place when the Bolshevicks managed to seize power but they managed to get it up to the point were it could challenge America and put up a dam good fight before it collapsed, largely because of the strain of the cold war, it would probably still be around if the capatilist powers had accepted it.

[Asheron]

Woah... no commie bashing yet? Are we still on the internet!??

The USSR collapsed because nearly the entire world was bashing away at it's economy. The USA, for example, specifically asked Saudi Arabia to produce more oil at the point where it's price lowered to 1/3 of it's original price. And guess what? Oil was the main export product of the USSR.
It is actually pretty amazing the USSR could hold on for so long... it was flawed, but it wasn't "evil" or anything. Heck, the USSR did a lot of good things, like equal rights for women, increasing literacy in Siberia and supporting African countries ( agreed, they might have done that for political reasons, but any country would do the same ).
Communism itself doesn't work, an adapted form ( like the new economical policy Lenin proposed ) might just work. And what EVERY communist country forgets:

Communism needs democracy like the body needs air - Marx

Oh, and they had a kick-ass hymn.

[nerdpride]

There is that part about Stalin murdering many of his own people (I'm not citing statistics on purpose ).  It might be easy to overlook in the grand scheme of things, and I guess there's a lot of hype about it (I never heard any teachers say something nice about the guy), but I think it's still significant.

My gripe with Communism is that I think people should be able to decide whether they want to sacrifice their own things for a "greater good" or something.

[Nonanonymous]

Stalin wasn't much of a communist, though.  Notice how much imagery of himself he had constructed?  One man alone can't be the People, and the People are the most important part of any true communist system.  Stalin may have been into the ideals a bit, but he was at heart just an egotistical dictator.

[Aqizzar]

On the subject of Stalin's ego, he was born Iosif Vissarionovich Dzhugashvili.  When he came to prominence, he changed it to Stalin, which roughly translates as 'Man of Steel'.  Human history is replete with egotistical dictators, but nobody else went around calling themselves Joe Superman.  That's some balls.

[a1s]

the translation "man of steel" is often misunderstood. Stalin does not translate to "that made out of steel", but rather "that belonging to steel".
however when you look at the amount of power that man had, you might think it's not that absurd to call him that. On one hand the man had the power to kill off any one, relocate them, or change virtually anything in the country. On the other hand somehow through his reign of terror he had made a country that was a backwoods agrarian swamp with no military or industrial power to speak of (I mean come on, how the hell do you lose a war that you alliance wins in 1 year?!), and turned it into something that could take on the Nazi war machine for 3 years (other than the African campaign, that was where the Germans fought), and could be the first to launch man into space.

on topic of Steel's man being a dictator, actually there is a clear statistic they don't much tell you about in school, that in most "half-developed" countries (i.e. ones with high degrees of traditional corruption, like say Argentina), a dictatorship always achieves more (at least in the first decade) than a democracy does. (that does not mean you should surrender your freedom to vote- just that democracy isn't always a cure, just like everything else in life.)

[Cthulhu]

Plus, the Spetsnaz are insane.  Need I cite backflipping hatchet guy?

[Maggarg - Eater of chicke]

I thought this was about the Chinese government doing some new chat thing, not masses of commie-bashing and arguing over American politics.
Well, at least your leaders are lively, we've got Gordon Brown, who is a miserable Scotsman who's previous job was to do lots of adding up.