To ask how modern communism is supposed to work?

[CurrentBun1981]

I was randomly thinking about this today and realised that, whilst I understand the very basic principles (stereotypes?) of communism, I don't really understand much about how it really should work when implemented 'properly' (if this has ever happened).

Googling it seems to bring up a lot of heavy theory or alternatively just wishy washy Reddit discussions. I'm assuming that young intellectuals/students who advocate for it don't want a Chinese style 'democracy', so how would modern communism work in theory?

I've read that leaders are supposed to take up key (temporary) positions in running of the country during the transitional period but that in reality these leaders rarely relinquish their power and just become dictators as seen historically.

Aside from that, why would anybody want to do the really grim, dirty or backbreaking jobs if they didn't have to? Who would do the really high stress/high risk jobs without any financial compensation? I read a discussion on it where a poster explained that people work for three main reasons - job satisfaction, societal duty, and the need for provisions/sustenance. He said that with Communism it's never the third reason and loads of people upvoted him.

A few people questioned this and the general reply was something about community pressure making people fall in line. I think this sounds bonkers and would never work in reality, much like what I've read about anarchy and communities policing themselves.

I haven't heard of modern communism and would be surprised if genuine Marxist communism had a resergency.

However, it's important not to conflate socialism with communism. Germany and Scandinavia are both good examples of social democracy. There is a mix of public/private and yea, higher taxes but they have ended up with much more equitable societies, without the horrendous wealth gap we have in the UK.

Look up the principles of Universal Basic Income. It's a hot topic in the wake of Coronavirus. There are various possible forms of it but on a very, very simplified level, everyone receives a minimum income but people then choose to be employed if they want more than a basic lifestyle.

The problem is any attempt to develop a truly democratic and popular Communism has been crushed either by Soviet or US supplied tanks: Hungary 56, Czechoslovakia 68, Chile 73 etc.

There are many different socialist societies that are on their way to communism. A great example is Cuba, which has been subjected terrible sanctions yet has still thrived in so many ways.
As for all this stuff about jobs being allocated and everyone getting paid the same, that doesn’t have to be the case at all. Marx wrote about the hope for a society where people are empowered by their work and also have free time for hobbies, education and family. This pandemic should teach us about which jobs are really important for society. A maximum wage is as important as a minimum one. All people and professions should be treated with dignity and that’s what communism is. I encourage people to look further into communist societies and how they operate. Please don’t believe the lies, not to say they were all great but a lot of negative things believed about the USSR are nazi propaganda that have unfortunately been treated as fact by the west because of anti communism and the Cold War. Social democracy will never be able to actually repair and solve to contradictions of capitalism because the companies are still allowed to profit. Where does the profit come from? If it’s not from the workers of the country with social democracy then it’s from exploited workers of the developing world.

Please don’t believe the lies, not to say they were all great but a lot of negative things believed about the USSR are nazi propaganda that have unfortunately been treated as fact by the west because of anti communism and the Cold War.

I fucking lived in it, I don't need lies or propaganda or even higher education studies on it.

My grandparents had their farm taken away for the cooperative, made to work it and only get the bare minimum back.
My uncle installed a listening station in the flats next door an never said a word.
Another extended family member dobbed dad in for having a cousin in the US , despite the fact dad never met her. He was interrogated for days and nearly lost his job
My mum's neighbours,coworkers and even school teachers had to answer questions about her before she was allowed to marry dad.
There was money ,but nothing to buy.
You had to go on a waiting list for a fridge or a car, and again have your life looked at under a microscope.
A lot of educated,brilliant people were treated like shit and looked at with distrust.
There was a lot of corruption,pettiness, looking out for number one and literally stepping on bodies to climb up.
People did disappear and came back bloodied and beaten ,if they did come back.
Abortion was illegal and the orphanages were full, pits of despair ,faeces and nits. Hundreds of thousands of children dead,or left with permanent mental and physical disability. Have you seen what happens to a developing toddler's limbs that is still left in a newborn cot and rarely removed?

There was only one approved telly programme. VHS movies were contraband ffs.

Water was on a schedule. Electricity sometimes as well. During the worst of it food was rationed.

People removed from their jobs,their homes , their hometowns to work and do what the party told them.

You had to justify any singe action,possession,family connection and even your thoughts.

Teens had to wear their school number on them all the time. Past curfew? Holding hands with a boy/girl? Exhibit any kind of unwanted behaviour? Everyone could report to your school at best of time.

Didn't even know what the West was for years. My dad died paranoid as fuck, my mum still follows many of the rules and is afraid of anyone in authority even years and years later.

Don't fucking tell me about propaganda!

up to 30% child poverty in 'one of the richest nations on earth
@user1471565182 according to the OECD it's more like 15% which is slightly better than average for OECD nations, the only countries to beat it are the usual Scandinavian and Swiss countries.

There are many different socialist societies that are on their way to communism.

There are only five socialist countries in the world today- China, Cuba, Vietnam, Laos and Venezuela.

Listen to PrincessConsuela, she speaks the truth about communist society IRL. The rainbows and unicorns promised in Marx and Engel are an illusory utopia. Not reality.

Oh, forgot to add that most of these five socialist countries are actually becoming more capitalist. Not more communist.

Why do people use the USSR as an example of socialism when people wouldn't do the same with Franco and capitalism for example???

USSR is used as an example of communism, not socialism because they were the first to try it. Theories are fine but you need practical examples of where it has worked. Cuba, if it does work, probably works because they have been shut off by sanctions. You would have to ask people who live in or have escaped from Cuba whether it is a true communist society that they are all happy with.

I may be the one missing the point but I kind of think you are op. I don't know what modern communism is - I expect it would be simply "communism" in the modern era. And we all know the tales of corruption from that, as PrincessConsuela outlined them. Capitalism, unchecked, also becomes extremely exploitative of the working classes, as we have seen at the beginning of the Industrial Revolution and in current times. At the least we need the social contracts and balances worked steadily out through the Victorian and post War periods back. But: both are different ways of organising and distributing resources from times when we needed everyone to be producing resources. With modern technology, that is no longer the case. Everything needed - needed - by millions can be produced by thousands now. We cannot simply keep on finding new things to produce and keep encouraging excessive consumption to build new markets: the environment cannot take that, not with our demographics. We need something new, something that works within our environment: something that reduces the excessive living of our extremely rich and distributes all resources including jobs, and does not discriminate against those that historically gave their labour in return for livings for themselves and the family wealth wealth of individuals. We will also need some demographic checks.

Here is Orwell's 2nd part of an essay about the success of the socialism adopted during world war 2 in britain, especially industry. I'll try and find the first part, it has to be one of my favourite essays

Shopkeepers At War

'I began this book to the tune of German bombs, and I begin this second chapter in the added racket of the barrage. The yellow gun-flashes are lighting the sky, the splinters are rattling on the housetops, and London Bridge is falling down, falling down, falling down. Anyone able to read a map knows that we are in deadly danger. I do not mean that we are beaten or need be beaten. Almost certainly the outcome depends on our own will. But at this moment we are in the soup, full fathom five, and we have been brought there by follies which we are still committing and which will drown us altogether if we do not mend our ways quickly.
What this war has demonstrated is that private capitalism – that is, an economic system in which land, factories, mines and transport are owned privately and operated solely for profit – does not work. It cannot deliver the goods. This fact had been known to millions of people for years past, but nothing ever came of it, because there was no real urge from below to alter the system, and those at the top had trained themselves to be impenetrably stupid on just this point. Argument and propaganda got one nowhere. The lords of property simply sat on their bottoms and proclaimed that all was for the best. Hitler's conquest of Europe, however, was a physical debunking of capitalism. War, for all its evil, is at any rate an unanswerable test of strength, like a try-your-grip machine. Great strength returns the penny, and there is no way of faking the result.'

When the nautical screw was first invented, there was a controversy that lasted for years as to whether screw-steamers or paddle-steamers were better. The paddle-steamers, like all obsolete things, had their champions, who supported them by ingenious arguments. Finally, however, a distinguished admiral tied a screw-steamer and a paddle-steamer of equal horsepower stern to stern and set their engines running. That settled the question once and for all. And it was something similar that happened on the fields of Norway and of Flanders. Once and for all it was proved that a planned economy is stronger than a planless one. But it is necessary here to give some kind of definition to those much-abused words, Socialism and Fascism.
Socialism is usually defined as ‘common ownership of the means of production’. Crudely: the State, representing the whole nation, owns everything, and everyone is a State employee. This does not mean that people are stripped of private possessions such as clothes and furniture, but it does mean that all productive goods, such as land, mines, ships and machinery, are the property of the State. The State is the sole large-scale producer. It is not certain that Socialism is in all ways superior to capitalism, but it is certain that, unlike capitalism, it can solve the problems of production and consumption. At normal times a capitalist economy can never consume all that it produces, so that there is always a wasted surplus (wheat burned in furnaces, herrings dumped back into the sea etc. etc.) and always unemployment. In time of war, on the other hand, it has difficulty in producing all that it needs, because nothing is produced unless someone sees his way to making a profit out of it.
In a Socialist economy these problems do not exist. The State simply calculates what goods will be needed and does its best to produce them. Production is only limited by the amount of labour and raw materials. Money, for internal purposes, ceases to be a mysterious all-powerful thing and becomes a sort of coupon or ration-ticket, issued in sufficient quantities to buy up such consumption goods as may be available at the moment.'

The rest is on this link

www.orwell.ru/library/essays/lion/english/e_saw

Someone far more knowledgeable than my A Level is free to correct me, but as far as I remember being taught, we've never had pure communism.

I thought that Communist theory was essentially accelerated by Lenin, Stalin et al, trying to skip past the revolutions of the Bourgeoisie, which were a necessary precursor to Communism? (I remember a loopy diagram of Leninism skipping past a stage or two advocated by Marx/Engels).

In fact, it seemed to me to be a self-denying prophecy - by advocating itself, it motivated Capitalism to reform far enough that the vast majority stood to lose far more than they could ever gain (now that I remember contributing in a university seminar, and my professor seemed happy enough with the reasoning!).

Communism is an extreme form of socialism.

Thanks for posting George Orwell’s essay. He is of course wrong about socialism solving the problem of production and consumption.
“but it is certain that, unlike capitalism, it can solve the problems of production and consumption....
In a Socialist economy these problems do not exist. The State simply calculates what goods will be needed and does its best to produce them.”

Both the USSR and China were notorious for miscalculating the goods needed resulting not just in shortages or overages but also in millions dying due to famines or lack of healthcare. Of course, Orwell can be forgiven for thinking that as he was writing during WWII when communism was at its height of popularity amongst the U.K. university set, the USSR was already a closed country and China had not done its “Great Leap Forward”.

In the USSR that's basically right thecats. The Bolsheviks, Mensheviks and SRs were split, all Marxists but disagreed about how quickly revolution should be implemented. The February revolution initially involved all of these parties and a few other left wing groups, but the October Revolution was Lenin's Bolsheviks (the most extreme Marxists) and the more extreme amongst the Mensheviks taking complete power.
His revolution depended on it kicking off in other countries so they could become co dependant, but they had the civil war to deal with and never got far into Poland, with the German and Hungarian revolutions failing. This along with Lenin needing to implement NEP means it was a pretty distorted version, even more so when Stalin got his hands on it.

One of the great what ifs of history is always what if Trotsky had got top dog instead (he wouldn't have been that much better imo).
I think Yugoslavia and some of the non or lesser USSR aligned communist post 1945 states did a bit better (Czechoslovakia) but they were all distorted or too extreme.

Conditions will never be right for something that needs to be so delicately balanced, which is why the flexibility of democratic socialism is a far better model.

You have to take into account western vs eastern mindsets as well.

Right, you're just equating bloody communism in fucked up states with democratic socialism again. Whats the point?

Orwell was explicitly anti communist and anti USSR.

Very interesting
Hitler's conquest of Europe, however, was a physical debunking of capitalism.
I suppose he alluding to the fact that the NAZI party claimed to be socialists and therefore since they seem to have “conquered” Europe that proves socialism is the better system? And here he goes on..
War, for all its evil, is at any rate an unanswerable test of strength, like a try-your-grip machine. Great strength returns the penny, and there is no way of faking the result.. So Orwell is arguing that might makes right. He must have thought the Allies were going to lose the war....because by his own measure capitalism has debunked socialism by the end of WWII, and you could say by the USA beating the USSR in the Cold War that followed.

It’s surprising that he did not even consider that much of the wealth backing the Nazis was through seizing it from millions of their Jewish citizenry at gun point, and then marching them off to death camps. It wasn’t through a superior “planned” economy. It was from genocide.
USSR did the same with the millions of kulaks.

I wonder if he retracted any of this after the War?

Look it up user. Communism is a type of socialism. It is on the extreme end of the spectrum. You can’t talk about socialism without discussing communism.

Give me strength this is like trying to communicate with Richard Madely.

oh dear, 'Nazis were socialists' klaxon. Your opinion is no longer worth knowing.

Communism is an extreme form of socialism.

Plenty of socilaists would disagree. Communists would say that Communism was a destination and Socialism was a stop on the road to communism.

The Second Socialist International of 1889 split between the democratic socialists and the revolutionaries who eventually formed the Third International, the Comintern. So communists are socialists but not all socialists are communists.

Social Democracy in the form of a welfare state and an industrial social contract was a great sucess in Western Europe from 1945, but in the wake of the crash of 08 it has fallen into an identity crisis. Centre-left parties everywhere are on the ropes, leaving the field open to right-wing populism and all points on the road to totalitarian madness.

You could ask the people at the pointy end of capitalism if it's working for them, but they're too busy picking litter in rubbish dumps in Nairobi and Jakarta.

User, I stated the Nazis claimed to be socialists, they were obviously fascists. And it was in the context of Orwell’s piece in which he states socialism has debunked capitalism by Hitler conquering Europe. I was commenting on how George Orwell must have believed the Nazi claim that they were socialists.

Try and stay in context instead of scanning so you can take offence.

I feel that the OPs original question regarding modern communism is being derailed by comments on the much milder system of democratic socialism.

Bunny
Well yes poverty has not been fully eliminated(yet), but since 1990 it has been reduced globally by 75%. So under capitalism, yes there are still people scrounging in dumps, but before there were 4x their number.

Improvement is progress aka “working”