Communism in Vietnam (1 Viewer)

[Generator]

Note the 'I can see no fundamental problem with the basic idea...'. I did not say that it was flawless.

 

[Enlightened_One]

In reality they are socialists.

Not true. In socialism it's about everyone working together and benefitting equally. Same as Communism but with one difference - Government. In basic, Communism is the government having all the power and controlling everything. Extremely Authorative. Socialism and Communism are both left wing, but at the opposites of Liberal and Authorative.

Did anyone else do that political compass thingy. That'd show you how it all works in simple form.

 

[neo o]

In basic, Communism is the government having all the power and controlling everything. Extremely Authorative.

Actually, in communism there is no government - idiot . Evidentally, your nickname is ironic.

In socialism the state controls the means of production.

 

[Comrade nathan]

Everyone says "in theory communism can work" then you go on to say "but human nature is the problem". The second statment conflicts with the first statement, thats because you have all missed the one thing in Communist theory that explains human nature. That is materialism, historical materialism and dialectical materialism. By the way i know little about dialectical materialism, but i know about historical materialism so i get the idea.

The reason why communist think people are not greedy is because of Marxist theory of materialism. They dont believe in human nature but social being(ill explain latter). See with the huge doubts in religion this caused philosophers to believe that we get ideas from the outside world. This lead to materialism. We are born with no ideas. Once we start to sense the world he get ideas. Like what can be eatern, or simple as grasping the idea of a tree. You see it smell etc you know have the idea for a tree.

So what does this have to do with the thread?

The belief that there is human nature.

But there is?

No. there is social being?

Explain social being, i have heard Marx and Engels talk about this.

Ok but this is Historical Materialism that explains it. This is a basic explanation.

The first ever civilisation of man was communism. There were no classess , and technology was limited. Food was communal owned, people will would kill animals with simple tools. The people on this soceity were social beings. The acted in a society without though about the society. The simple tools came along. Weopons were made, they now had the ability to expliot. The people who created the tools could gain more food and distribute how the say fit. From here the advancement allowed people to use the tools and weopens to have slaves. Then there were classes. Slave owners and slaves. The two class were only social through the use of tools as the slaves built the society while the slave owners directed. Then more advancements brought along a new society, Feudalism. New classes emerged the Peasants and Feudal lords. The Feudal lords own land and the peasants worked on the land. They used the tools the Feudal lord supplied. Then the next technological advancement allowed the capitalist (bourgeois) to emerge. Throough class struggle this class with its money bought tools knocking out the feudal lords from there position. In some countries revolution occured to remove the ruling monarchy. The Capitalist with their news tools employed people from the now emerging proleteriat class. This class did not own any property and would sell their labour to the capitalist. The capitalist would pay the proleteriat the required amount to live, then take the rest to cover production cost and take a percentage as profit. With building and over time this expaned into the capitalist soceities of today.

But what does this mean, whats it got to with human nature and social being

For starters the worker (proleteriat) incentive to work is not driven by profit, its to gain money to survive. The capitalist doesnt share the profit, he only pays the worker the minimum to survive. The capitalist incentive is profits, every thing he does is for profit, so he is greedy. Without being greedy he will not survive. He will even fire workers for profit.

Now the to social being. The worker is a social being. He only works to survive. Going back to materialism, he gains ideas from the outside world. He lives in a capitalist soceity so he acts accordenly. He works to gain money to buy a house or pay rent, to buy food and now in todays society buy consumer products.

So the worker or the capitalist dont have human nature, actually they have different incentives

Yes they are social being's, they act with soceity. They do not have free will to create their own ideas. Ideas are forced onto them so in society this happens to.

will they always be social beings

No. Through class conflict and erros in capitalist production, like depressions, the proleteriat start to view their position in society differently. Also through dialectical Materialism we can view society in its objective form. The working class views their relations to productivity and the capitalist class.

Where do the go from there

Theory is they will have a revolution. The the proleteriat will be the ruling class

Like the other societies

Yes. Each society with new technological advances have resulted in a new ruling class thus a new society eg Slave owners to Feudal Lords to Capitalist class.

In each soceity humans have acted in different ways, we have been lead to believe this is human nature, but materialism shows us that it is not true.

Some people say materialism is not correct

These people are either religius, they believe god gives us free will and thus we are not sociali beings. That leads to believe classess can exist without conflict. Or they may be Idealist, they believe that ideas create the world. Or they may be objectivist who believe that consciousness is real. That unlike materailist who believe only matter exist in the world, they believe the mind exist. That is that we create our own ideas, this just leads to idealist trash. Also science is starting to prove that brain and mind are nothing more then matter.

Back to the revolution, what happens after it

Since the people have been under capitalism their thought is reactionary. They may be greedy and believe in profit over need. This was what was mistaking for human nature. So after the revolution we cant go straight to communism. This period is called the Dictatorship of the proleteriat. The goal is to eliminate the capitalist class, by removing the means of production from private entreprise to state control. Industries at the start of the revolution will go straight to state hands, but for instance small buisness will stay private for a time. The are not as counter revolutionary as the bourgeois, and are not needed to be nationalised yet. Also during this time through education the new human is built (Che guavara wrote a essay call "The new Man" which summarises this. When all means of production are nationalised and class is eliminated the state will wither away, thus communism. The humans of this society due to socialism will work together, the socialist system replaced the anarchy of production (profit system) with a planned economy. New generations have never lived under capitalism will be brought up in a planned economy, so they will not have reactionary thoughts of reverting to capitalism. Like today we are brought up in a capitalist soceity so we think there needs to be profit for a soceity to run, we believe people cant run a soceity on need.

but what about the fall of the USSR and the revisionism in other countries

Historical materialism go as such

Primitive communism > Slavery > Feudalism >Capitalism >Socialism > Communism.

Places like Russia were semi Feudal. They did not have a strong bourgeois thus they didnt have a strong proleteriat. They had to make many compensations for the jumping of capitalism to socialism. Many people believe they would only lead to capitalism then years on revolt back to socialism. In the USSR through Lenin and Stalin the Soviet Union came from a poor peasant nation to a 2nd world nuclear power. They were seen as a world power. They had now industrailised the country and collectivsed the farms. They were now a modern society. (We all know this came at a cost). After Stalins death many people in the party had reactionary thoughts and Khrushchev begin to give power to enterprises in industries. Later on they allowed market prices, bargaining with different suppliers. Leaders begin to do this in the name of democracy, but really they were having problems with production, so they jumped straight to capitalist market tactics. There are many other problem like cold war, weopons race, capitalist intervention to socialist countries.


So that was pretty basic explanation, sorry for FAQ style and the whole corny asspect. It was pretty basic you can ask question about it.

Sorry about spelling mistakes i dont have microsoft word to spell check.

You cant just say that it works in theory but human nature wont allow it, when you dont know the theory.

http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1847/11/prin-com.htm

Thats a good read to.

 

[euripidies]

Interesting interview
-----------------------------------------------------

K. M.: Some have proposed a new paradigm for the left that is much more
Darwinian in its approach to understanding and changing those conditions
that afflict the poor, the oppressed, and the otherwise disadvantaged within
society. It appears to maintain the core of those things that are and have
been integral to a genuine left bearing (fighting unnecessary suffering of
the weak and poor, of the exploited and the cheated), yet offers a Darwinian
rationale for cooperation that takes seriously both competitive
self-interest and altruism. Peter Singer's short, but provocative book
dealing with this theme is a case in point, and it offers a kind of
counter-narrative to Marxism. For those who profess education from a
traditionally left perspective, but who recognize that a certain ennui and
impotence has befallen the left in recent times, what is your take on the
possibility of a revitalized cooperative left emanating from a more
genuinely Darwinian perspective? Is there a real, and perhaps more
realistic, alternative here to Marxist and neo-Marxist thinking or will it
just become the plaything for old fashioned social Darwinist demagogues?


P. M.: Well, you are referring here to the book, A Darwinian Left, by Peter
Singer. I'm familiar with that book but not especially familiar with left
Darwinism as a contemporary movement. Let's look at Singer's conception of
left Darwinism for a moment. On the one hand, I like the fact that Singer
condemns the dangers of a reactionary sociobiology but on the other hand, I
seriously question Singer's notion of utilitarianism as the basis of the
principle of human nature. Not to mention that Singer really has presented
an underdeveloped and in many respects misguided critique of Marxism. His
notion that Marx got it wrong because of the history of failed communist
governments is puerile. It's too silly even to debate this notion. Singer
also goes on to claim that Marx's most serious sin is his idea that there is
no fixed human nature. Human nature supposedly changes with every change in
the mode of production. And Marx supposedly committed another serious sin
when he worked from the perspective of the perfectibility of humankind.

According to Singer, Marx and Engels claimed to have discovered the laws of
human historical development that would lead to communist society and that
according to these laws, the victory of the proletariat was ensured. Singer
is critical of Marx's notion that social existence determines consciousness.
Whereas a Darwinian sees greed, egotism, personal ambition and envy as a
consequence of our nature, the Marxist would see these as the consequence of
living in a society with private property and the private ownership of the
means of production. Without these social arrangements, Singer believes
that, according to Marx, the nature of people would be transformed such that
people would no longer be concerned with their private interests. Darwinians
believe that the way in which the mode of production influences our ideas,
our politics, and our consciousness is through the specific features of our
biological inheritance, and that if we want to reshape society, we need to
modify our abstract ideals so that they suit our biological tendencies.
According to the Darwininan perspective, all those who profess to be guided
by motives other than self-profit ‹ what Marx would call `gross materialism
_ are the unwitting victims of an idealist illusion.

Prescinding from this enfeebling yet all-too-familiar interpretation of
Marx, let's examine that famous sentence of Marx's (in Marx's Preface to A
Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy) of which Singer is so
critical: "It is not the consciousness of men that determines their
existence, but their social existence that determines their consciousness."
As far back as 1980, Jose Miranda pointed out that Marx's notion of
determination must be understood in a way that is not deterministic because
the German verb bestimmen is all too often translated as "to determine" and
this verb means a lot of things unrelated to determinism. (Miranda notes
that this major mistake in translation can be linked to translations into
languages derived from Latin, where the basic word appears as a form of
determinaire.) In Marx's use of this term he in no way excludes the concept
of human freedom or contingency; in fact, he uses the term dialectically.
Marx makes a fuller explanation of what he meant by consciousness in German
Ideology. Marx never forgot that just as circumstances help to form human
beings, human beings also help to form circumstances. In contrast to what
many critics of Marx claim, human beings for Marx are far from the passive
actors of historical processes. Marx did not believe that there was no such
thing as human nature. He argued that humans are biological, anatomical,
physiological and psychological beings. He argued that an individual's human
nature must be addressed, but must also be understood in terms of how it has
been modified in each historical epoch. In fact, Marx went so far as to
contrast constant or fixed drives (such as hunger and the sexual urge) which
are integral and can be changed only in form and cultural direction and the
relative appetites (which are not an integral part of human nature and which
owe their origin to conditions of production and communication). Humans were
species-beings whose natures were clearly trans-historical and relatively
unchanging in many respects (see Fromm, 2000). Marx distinguishes clearly
between the laws of nature and the result of humans making a choice.
Clearly, human beings produce their social relations just as they produce
material goods; they are their own products as well as the products of
history. And of history, it is quite clear that Marx did not view history
mechanically, as if it was some wind-up sequence of causes and effects. Marx
is interested in the laws of tendency within economics, not history's
predictive capacity or laws of historical inevitability. History for Marx
was always pregnant with possibility.

Marx did not reject the notion of human nature so much as a universal and
timeless concept of human nature. Marx clearly could identify human
characteristics that are universal and historically invariant and which set
limits to the plasticity of human nature. This contrasts with the view of
Rorty, who believes there are no biological or metaphysical limits on human
plasticity. My friend Richard Litchman presciently notes, "the very notion
of human nature as a tabula rasa is self-contradictory. Even a blank slate
must have such properties as will permit the acceptance of the chalk, as the
wax accepts the stylus, the inscribing tool. The issue is not whether there
is a common nature, but what precisely that nature is" (cited in Sayers,
1998). When human beings make themselves their own creator by producing
their own means of subsistence, then this signals the beginning of human
history. The act of production creates new needs, something that Marx
referred to as the first historical act. It is important to see Marx's
understanding of human nature within the dialectical relationship of needs
and productive powers. New needs are created through the productive activity
we engage in to satisfy our universal needs, and this activity has to be
seen in terms of the social relations which are themselves ultimately
determined by such needs (Sayers, 1998). New forms of productive activity
may result, and, indeed, new productive powers. Needs never arise in a
vacuum. That is why in concrete conditions, human nature, in general, does
not exist. Marx is interested in the social development of needs, beyond
those necessary only for biological survival.

Singer's left Darwinism is not very helpful as a ground for social
explanation without understanding, for instance, how jealousy, or
selfishness has been realized in social individuals who are the products of
a specific mode of production or a particular historical period. From a
historical materialist point of view, nature is a precondition of human
development and not an explanation of it. You can't explain the social in
terms of the concept of the natural. The laws of natural evolution can't be
transferred to social evolution. For Marx, social and moral developments are
judged on how they impact on the growth of human nature in terms of the
creation of powers and capacities. The stress in Marx is the development of
new needs. As Sean Sayers notes: "Paradoxical as it at first seems, the
ideal is the human being `rich in needs'. For on Marx's view this is
equivalent to the development of human powers and capacities, the
development of human nature" (1998, p. 164). True wealth, for Marx, lies
precisely in the development of human nature. That is why I prefer Marx's
Hegelian historicist approach to human nature over Singer's utilitarian and
consequentialist approach to human nature. When Singer claims that the
Russian revolution failed because the revolutionaries failed to consider the
invariant need on the part of human beings for power and authority, such an
argument is as specious as Yak dung. Now what I like about Singer's work is
his interest in the evolution of human co-operation. And he claims that most
human beings won't co-operate unless it serves their own interests to do so.
His notion of reciprocal altruism based on an evolutionary view of human
psychology certainly is worth investigating. I like the fact that he wants a
less anthropocentric view of our dominance over nature, and to cease our
exploitation of non-human animals (something that appeals to my commitment
to animal rights), and his commitment to stand on the side of the weak. My
commitment is that the development of new and creative vital powers will be
best served in the struggle for socialism.

full interview at:

http://profed.brocku.ca/docs/vol2/num2/anum1.htm

http://profed.brocku.ca/docs/vol2/num1/anum1.htm

 

[babydoll_]

well back to Vietnam eh

Today they had a protest in Cabramatta, to have another flag instead of the official flag raised there

The real flag is a yellow star in the middle of a red background, which stands for communism

The other flag is 3 red stripes on a yellow background which stands for the blood and the skin of the Vietnamese, and also for freedom and justice etc

So yeah

 

[Comrade nathan]

well back to Vietnam eh

No offence to Vientnamese living in Australia, but i wouldnt put full trust in these vietnamese emigrants that have come to Australia at the start of the war. Many refuges from countries in revolution are sometimes criminals or land lord's that have commited atrocities. The flee to save their own skin and capitalist nations take them in gladly.

 

[felix_js]

Many refuges from countries... are sometimes criminals.

just like the convicts in 1788 eh?

 

[Enlightened_One]

Actually, in communism there is no government - idiot . Evidentally, your nickname is ironic.

In socialism the state controls the means of production.

Actually yes, my name is ironic. I never intended to be an expert on any topic (refer to my sig for that), and I never thought of myself as really "enlightened", there's a long story on my name and why and I used it and where I have used it and variations etc, but that's not worht mentioning, and it's probably boring.

Anyway, are you sure? I am no expert, but isn't communism authorative and sociaism Libertarian. In Communism the "eilte" tell the rest what to do. Hence in the end it is a form of government.

 

[Comrade nathan]

Anyway, are you sure? I am no expert, but isn't communism authorative and sociaism Libertarian. In Communism the "eilte" tell the rest what to do. Hence in the end it is a form of government.

After revolution, socialism is installed with a functioning state, in communism the state was withered away. There is no class so no elite. I mention it in my post above. Is it to boring to read?

 

[chubbaraff]

I think what we have is a school text book definition, by Marx, the reliable one, since he made the theory comrae nathan is correct. Maybe some teacher told you that that was what communism is but in fact that was probably just what stalinist or pol pot communism was, which is obviously a total perversion of the truth since communism has never existed, because the stalinist nations always justified the maintenece of the state to serve their beurocratic interests.

 

[thaoroxy2001]

I think i'm the only vietnamese who is replying on this thread quite ironic since this thread is about Vietnam....but all u people who are arguing about communism should actually think about ppl living in a communist country....like back in VN some ppl don't even get the chance to go to uni because the government rekons they've got too much money and forcefully take their homes....I think communism is a great idea (in theory) but in real life the ppl in charge are often corrupt so it doesn't really work out....it's great that everyone has equal chances but some ppl actually work hard for their money, respect and education why take those things away from them....

 

[Lainee]

Wonder why I didn't stumble on this thread before... because this is something I've given alot of thought to. My parents are both Vietnamese refugees - 1975 - but I was born in Australia (as I think are most of us around this age group) so I have no idea of what the war was like or the subsequent Communist control.

I think one thing we're forgetting though is how much fear the Communist instilled in South Vietnam. My father was in the military, and when the Communist invaded he was captured and sent to "rehabitation camp" (direct translation from Vietnamese, probably an English term that I don't know of) where he was tortured (both shoulders broken and without access to doctors) and saw many great men kill themselves. He's a bit mental I have to say, wakes up screaming "kill them all!" a couple of times a month - and keep in mind this is like 20 years after - and sees a shrink and takes anti-depressants.

Just one example of the impact of Communism on individual lives. You can talk about the theory of Communism and discuss general issues of moral value and social control - but you cannot deny the terrors that occured during the early years of their control.

You can't blame the hatred that continues with the Vietnamese community here in Australia. They lost their country, some cannot ever return for fear of prosecution (my parents for one) and the Communist are prancing about spreading propaganda of a 'progressing' nation and improved economics, while religious freedom is denied and corruption is rampant.

You can't blame them really, for hating the Communist flag (the star to cut throats on a red background of Southern blood) a symbol that their country was lost. VTV - a medium for spreading propaganda. I have satellite at home and you guys should hear the bullshit they dish out - never any disasters (last year there was a flood that killed over 1000 people, which was simply just left out of the news broadcast all together).

I feel that when the Vietnamese community here holds these rallies, it's against the continuing injustices in their homeland fuelled by their history of hatred.

No offence to Vientnamese living in Australia, but i wouldnt put full trust in these vietnamese emigrants that have come to Australia at the start of the war. Many refuges from countries in revolution are sometimes criminals or land lord's that have commited atrocities. The flee to save their own skin and capitalist nations take them in gladly.

Criminals against what law? This was a war-torn country. Whoever had the means (wealth, proximinity, anonymity) fleed as soon as the Communist conquered the northern cities - rape, kidnap, murders. That was what they were fleeing from. They didn't commit atrocities, you obviously don't know what you're talking about, they were fleeing from fear of violence. On those tiny boats, people risked being raped/slaughtered by pirates, risked floating into unfriendly waters and taking bullets, risked sharks and amongst all of this: sinking, lack of food, lack of hygiene, overcrowding... They risked everything to escape from this country - and how they're trying to help the others 'escape'.

 

[chubbaraff]

I didnt mean to offend any vietnamese if i did, the post above was about communist theory and said nothing about the problems of vietnamese socialism and that was intentional... im not debating something i havent seen and know little about

 

[Comrade nathan]

They lost their country, some cannot ever return for fear of prosecution (my parents for one) and the Communist are prancing about spreading propaganda of a 'progressing' nation and improved economics, while religious freedom is denied and corruption is rampant.

For the small amount of people who lost everything becuase of the revolution there is a large amount that are experiencing the benifits of the revolution ie medical care, education, jobs with better technology etc. And you cant deny that.

Criminals against what law? This was a war-torn country. Whoever had the means (wealth, proximinity, anonymity) fleed as soon as the Communist conquered the northern cities - rape, kidnap, murders. That was what they were fleeing from. They didn't commit atrocities, you obviously don't know what you're talking about, they were fleeing from fear of violence. On those tiny boats, people risked being raped/slaughtered by pirates, risked floating into unfriendly waters and taking bullets, risked sharks and amongst all of this: sinking, lack of food, lack of hygiene, overcrowding... They risked everything to escape from this country - and how they're trying to help the others 'escape'.

Im not as knowledgeable with the Vietnamese revolution as i am with the Cuba revolution. Today there is a large amount of Cuban exiles living in the US who want nothing more but to destroy the Cuban revolution, there is a clear reason why.

These characters have shady backgrounds. Many are just criminals that fled justice, also Cuba used one excuse to deport criminals to the US when they gave permission for people to leave cuba over a certain period.

The other type of people who fled during this time where the private buisness owners who worked people as slaves and who actually owned black people as slaves.

So the two major type of people to flee Cuba were either petty criminals or rich coporate criminals.

One experience of revolution would tell us this is a common occurrance of the majority of people leaving a country in revolutionary periods. In China Mao wrote that many people fleeing the area the Peoples Army was taken control of were feudal lords who had exploited the peasants and criminals. So then there is a possibality and with common sense that the only people leaving the Vietnamese area's of the revolution time were the upper class who had explioted thoose who were the force of the revolutoon or they were criminals. Ofcourse there is a small percentage of people fleeing revolutionary countries at the time were completly innoccent.

 

[katie_tully]

ive read the communist manifesto.
i think you'll find if you leave cynicism, morals, etc at the door you'll realise that the outline of Marx's idea is somwhat true - especially with globalisation. i agree with his idea that society is a class struggle...but at the same token i don't believe that everybody should be on equal grounds. ie; lawyers being paid the same as janitors.
plus, you'll never get a government that can regulate it. look at russia. in theory communism would have worked - their government was corrupt.
as is vietnams government.
as are most governments. no government ever does anything unless it benefits them, which is pretty much the idea.

blah blah blah.
theoretically Marxism had the idea, he just didnt have the solution.

 

[ArgueEverything]

ive read the communist manifesto.
i think you'll find if you leave cynicism, morals, etc at the door you'll realise that the outline of Marx's idea is somwhat true - especially with globalisation. i agree with his idea that society is a class struggle...but at the same token i don't believe that everybody should be on equal grounds. ie; lawyers being paid the same as janitors.
plus, you'll never get a government that can regulate it. look at russia. in theory communism would have worked - their government was corrupt.
as is vietnams government.
as are most governments. no government ever does anything unless it benefits them, which is pretty much the idea.

blah blah blah.
theoretically Marxism had the idea, he just didnt have the solution.

Marx never sugested that lawyers should be paid the same as janitors. No where in his writing did he suggest that everyone should be paid the same; that is a myth. All Marx called for, in a nutshell, was the abolition of private property and the ownership of the means of production by society rather than private individuals. That does not entail equality of income, though it does, probably, mean that incomes would be MORE equal in a communist society. That's not a bad thing - most people would agree that the poorest of our society are paid far too little, and the rich (CEOs) are often paid far too much.

On the topic of "communism" in Vietnam (really state-capitalism, since the means of production are owned by a quasi-dictatorial state rather than democratically under the working class, as it would be under a genuine communist system), people seem to be forgetting a few historical facts here:
- the pre-Communist governments in South Vietnam (Diem, Khanh, Minh etc) were far, far more repressive, murderous and corrupt than the Communists are today. In fact, the Vietnamese Communists are known for their comparative leniency in dealing with their former enemies. There were no mass executions following the Communist victory in 1975. The re-education camps, bad though they were, were a lot better than what happens in most post-revolutionary environments (i.e. you are lined up against a wall and shot)
- the Communists were, and probably still are, immensely popular in North AND South Vietnam. That's why elections were never held - the Americans and South Vietnamese government knew that the Communist would probably win up to 80% of the vote, and therefore be able to form a government.
- the flood of Vietnamese refugees who came to Australia etc in the 1970s were largely motivated by false fear instilled by the departing Americans. The Americans told them that there would be immense bloodletting, executions etc after the Communists took over. This, as we now know, never eventuated. So you can't cite the flood of refugees as evidence of the "evils" of communism - its simply evidence of the mistruths of the then-American government.

 

[j.u.l.i.e]

why are these comments so bloody long??? i just cbb to read it all

communism - the actualy thought of every1 being equal is a nice thought,
but human nature takes over
humans are greedy, selfish and jealous
communism just wont work - its just the honest truth

 

[katie_tully]

Marx never sugested that lawyers should be paid the same as janitors. No where in his writing did he suggest that everyone should be paid the same; that is a myth. All Marx called for, in a nutshell, was the abolition of private property and the ownership of the means of production by society rather than private individuals. That does not entail equality of income, though it does, probably, mean that incomes would be MORE equal in a communist society. That's not a bad thing - most people would agree that the poorest of our society are paid far too little, and the rich (CEOs) are often paid far too much.

On the topic of "communism" in Vietnam (really state-capitalism, since the means of production are owned by a quasi-dictatorial state rather than democratically under the working class, as it would be under a genuine communist system), people seem to be forgetting a few historical facts here:
- the pre-Communist governments in South Vietnam (Diem, Khanh, Minh etc) were far, far more repressive, murderous and corrupt than the Communists are today. In fact, the Vietnamese Communists are known for their comparative leniency in dealing with their former enemies. There were no mass executions following the Communist victory in 1975. The re-education camps, bad though they were, were a lot better than what happens in most post-revolutionary environments (i.e. you are lined up against a wall and shot)
- the Communists were, and probably still are, immensely popular in North AND South Vietnam. That's why elections were never held - the Americans and South Vietnamese government knew that the Communist would probably win up to 80% of the vote, and therefore be able to form a government.
- the flood of Vietnamese refugees who came to Australia etc in the 1970s were largely motivated by false fear instilled by the departing Americans. The Americans told them that there would be immense bloodletting, executions etc after the Communists took over. This, as we now know, never eventuated. So you can't cite the flood of refugees as evidence of the "evils" of communism - its simply evidence of the mistruths of the then-American government.

I never said Marx wanted Lawyers and Janitors to be paid the same. That is a modern day interpretation, that is what communist governments do when they get into power.
The poor are getting poorer, the rich are getting richer.
Class struggle.

 

[Comrade nathan]

look at russia. in theory communism would have work

In practice socialism (thats what you meant, not communism) in russia worked. Lenin found russia a 3rd world feudal country Stalin left it a industrial nuclear 2nd world nation. Production boomed, living standards increased as did education. Nationalisation was working and the farms where collectivised. Socialism was working, but alas they believed that what ever happened Russia would not return to capitalism and would only move forward to communism.

In the party there were still factions that were not yet exposed and people took adavantage when Stalin died. These opportunist emerged to start to introduce capitalist economics to try and turn around falling production. As time went on the party and new party memebers were falling more revisionist and the old Bolisheviks wo were alive were expelled from the party. Eventually a style of market prices were introduced and entreprises of factories were giving more power.

It is obvious that socialism wasn't the problem but rather how the workers and the party were organised.

why are these comments so bloody long??? i just cbb to read it all

Because when you post as you have posted it makes you look like a moron. Since you havent bothered to read the post, we have got over the idea of human nature. Marxism is a theory which refutes Human Nature.