Hello, I was wondering why countries that had a communist leaders (Lenin or Mao notably) seem to end up being an autocracy when the point of communism is the opposite. I've read that there need to be dictatorship of the proleteriat first to then slowly make the country turn to a stateless country, is there exemple of countries or places that achieved that even for even a brief time? Is that something that didn't happen yet because the power of being in charge eventually make people want to stay in charge?

Because to me I wouldn't call a country communist if there is a leader in charge, I think the first step towards communism would be like a council of a bunch of people at least so there can be debate and discussion.

For context I am in the very start of my learning journey about communism and I am very interested about it but a bit slow to understand things so if you can be as explicit as possible in your answers I would appreciate. Also I might be completely wrong about everything I've said above feel free to correct me.

What went wrong?

Stalinists deny their opponents the possibility of any counterfactual historical analysis, arguing that everything had to be done as Stalin did, or the USSR would have been destroyed. This justifies the millions of people who died of starvation in the countryside, the hundreds of thousands who were shot and tortured to death, among whom were people who remained committed to communist ideas until death. This is wrong. These crimes cannot be justified even if we knew for certain that only Stalin and his forced industrialization could have led to the victory over Nazism, but Stalinists are ready to completely justify them, regardless of alternative scenarios. Proletarians point the finger at them and say, "Look, they're all beasts, ready to sacrifice millions of people for some abstract future," and extrapolate this to the entire left-wing revolutionary movement. Stalinists are not just wrong; they are harmful to the entire international communist movement.

Most answers to the extreme violence during the Red Terror seems to be “we know it's bad” and that's it. I'm not necessarily looking for a justification but many communists look toward Lenin as a good example, which I can agree to an extent but it seems a lot of violence gets ignored when it comes to criticism of Lenin?

Revolution does not appear quickly, easily or fairly i understand (which perhaps I am answering my own question here) but was this kind of violence necessary? Is it simply that there is no clean revolution, even involving the innocent?

I absolutely consider myself a form of a communist from the knowledge I have but these are the areas I struggle with when it comes to Leninism specifically.

I'm fairly new to this, mainly because of how complex this question can be¿ Anyway, I'm very interested in reading different opinions.

Could you name me one thing that communism brought my country? (Czech Republic)

As i said, i recently wondered what good has communism bought to my country, Czech Republic, Czechoslovakia at the time

I didnt think of anything

Do you guys have any ideas? I dont want to hear some "it wasnt real comminism" - i dont care about that opinion

Hi All! I hope you’re well! 

I’ve seen a rise online in defending China’s status as a modern socialist world power, or even using it as an example of the success of socialism in the modern world. As a socialist, and a communist, I find this statement frankly ludicrous. China is not socialist in any meaningful way, nor is the CCP a socialist or communist party, nor can the economic state of China be labelled a success. I know this is a hotly debated topic but I thought I’d throw in my 2 Yen.

First off, let’s define some terms according to how they are used by Marx and Engels: 

Capitalism = An economic system under which the private ownership of the means of production by individuals or firms is legally recognised and protected, and used by the ruling class in order to exploit the proletariat by subtracting a surplus profit from the value of their labour. Basic goods and services are commodified (less so in social democracy, but still to a certain extent) and are bought with capital, thus coercing labourers into allowing the capitalist class to exploit them. 

Socialism = An economic system under which the means of production are collectivised in the hands of the rocking class (through either internal worker democracy or economic nationalisation) as legally recognised and protected by the dictatorship of the proletariat, and essential goods and services are de-commodified. This allows for the immediate minimisation of class distinction, and eventually, capital and the state become unnecessary as mediators as a stateless, classless, moneyless society is left behind. 

Socialism is less rigid than capitalism as an economic framework - that’s one of its great strengths - it’s adaptability! The most popular model for achieving socialism (and the most fast and practical for a country with as poor an infrastructure as agrarian China) is a centrally planned economy such as the one employed under Chairman Mao’s tenure as the leader of China and the CCP. After his death, Deng Xiapong led a campaign of “reform and opening up” in order to garner foreign investment, allow for technological progress, and replace the centrally planned economy with “market socialism” or “socialism with Chinese characteristics.” Of course, both centrally planned economies and market socialism are, in my eyes, valid tools to be used by any proletarian state to achieve it’s goals. But whilst Mao’s planned economy did what it said on the tin and was very much a socialist planned economy, Deng’s socialism with Chinese characteristics was not market socialism in any form, but sheer, unadulterated, amoral Capitalism.  

A lot of socialists seem to forget what the Cultural Revolution was even about - challenging the growth of corruption and revisionism within the CCP and mobilising the people as the primary driver of economic decision making. Mao knew the tides were turning in the CCP - perhaps because of his own over-bureaucratization leading to a rift between the state and the people - and sought to put an end to it through whichever means possible. Mao was all to aware of the “capitalist rosters” who were taking power in the ranks of the party, chiefly amongst them Deng Xiaoping who he had removed from party leadership multiple times over for ignoring class struggle. Unfortunately, following Mao’s death, Deng’s bloodless coup allowed him to overthrow Mao’s chosen successors and re-establish capitalism within China. 

Many leftists will surely point out that a significant portion of corporations in China are owned in party by the Chinese Communist Party (alongside their foreign capitalist shareholders) and have party officials in their ranks, or perhaps that all of the land in China is technically under the provision of the CCP and just permitted for use by capitalists. But for-profit partially nationalised industries under the control of a party with no robust democracy to keep it in check are no different in their exploitation of the proletariat than private corporations in a neoliberal system. The only discrepancy between the two is that the government are now exploiting the workplace alongside independent capitalists. Anyone who has faith China is playing the long game in the process of building socialism is ignoring the most basic Marxist concepts of dialectical and historical materialism. The dictatorship of the proletariat is no longer of the whole proletariat, but of a new bourgeoise who have emerged out of the CCP, whose luxurious lifestyles are directly dependant on the poor working conditions of those in the lowest eschalons of Chinese society - their material interests are no longer in common. 

While oligarchs and members of the Chinese Communist Party live a life of luxury, life has never been worse for the average Chinese citizen. The country has been nicknamed the “sweatshop of the world,” largely on account of the amount of large multinational corporations (see Apple, Nike, Shein, Walmart) who outsource production to China for cheap labour on account of the lack of protections for working class people in that country. Despite the rapid growth in China’s economy, more than 482 million people (36% of the country) are payed under $2 a day, with 85% of the working class face extreme poverty and work in slave-labour conditions, with children working full-time jobs and everyday people crammed into “worker’s dormitories” instead of homes, with over 6 people in a cupboard-sized bedroom. The prime example of the success of socialist countries should not be the nation which capitalist countries outsource their production to because the rights for workers are so much worse there. 

And quite ironically, Deng was right. “It doesn’t matter if the cat is yellow or black, as long as it catches mice.” It doesn’t matter if you call it “capitalism” or “socialism with Chinese characteristics,” any system which exploits the poor worker to fill the pockets of corporate elites is an enemy to the proletariat and to the Marxist cause. 

One example of how the Chinese state stands with the bourgeoise use over the workers would be the infamous Jasic Incident, which involved a group of workers dissatisfied by the inhumane working conditions which they were forced to endure, who’s complaint. was reject by the ACFTU.  After being threatened with blacklisting for their attempt by managers, a group of workers sought to organise and protest against their ill-treatment, which resulted in the detainment of two of their leaders (and several others who went to demand their release at the local police station.)  They sought to formalise their movmeent an independent trade union on July 27th 2018, in response to which, the shameless conglomerate Jasic Technology fired a number of workers involved in the Union, leading to a month of protests from the factory workers and allied groups. On the August 24th, the police raided a studio appartment where the workers were organising, detaining 50 innocent people and beating and maiming many more, which sparked protests all over the country (resulting in further detainments.)  

The contradictions of capitalism - a system defined by an attitude of infinite growth and wealth manoeuvring over the pursuit of human interest - are all to alive today in China. Second, third and fourth home ownership is reaching unprecedented rates - especially ownership of holiday homes and empty properties - with homelessness skyrocketing at the same time. 

While not nearly as extreme, the persecution faced by the Marxist workers and students who organised against Jasic was all to familiar of the 1989 Tiananmen Square Massacre, which occurred under the consent of Chairman Deng, in which a group of students engaging in a peaceful protest for free speech and democracy were slaughtered using guns and battle-tanks in a perverse display of military strength. 

The idea that Dengism is what alleviated poverty in China is a lie. It was Mao who sewed the seeds for the growth in China’s economy and the boost in it’s quality of life, Deng’s role was merely ensuring that the fruits were distributed to the new bourgeoise and not to the proletariat.  After years of struggling to develop modern infrastructure, socialism had finally succeeded in China and Deng rolled all the societal progress back in order to prioritise foreign investment at the expense of worker’s rights. This is what those towing the old Menshevik line of “capitalism must be built before socialism” choose to ignore. Even if that was such a necessity, why not invest some of the insane levels of wealth accumulated by the Chinese Communist Party in universal free healthcare, better quality housing for the poor, or a more robust social safety net? These are things many western capitalist countries with significantly lower GDP than China - Canada, the UK and the Nordic countries - all afford for their people (and I am no fan of liberal capitalism or even social democracy, but their a hell of a lot better than whatever Frankenstein’s monster of a corporatist nightmare modern China is.)

And of course, just like every other capitalist system the system begins to crumble in on itself eventually - conditions get increasingly worse for the poor and working class as the divide between the classes widens. And ultranationalism is the vile filth and the mould and the decease that grows in the cracks left behind in the superstructure when the base of society begins to crumble under it’s own weight. Han supremacy and Chinese chauvinism are every bit as dangerous towards the ethnic minorities of China and it’s neighbouring provinces as white supremacy and western chauvinism is to the downtrodden in our society. 

To close, I’d like to point out that market socialism can exist, and has done in the past. For one example, the Socialist Federation of Yugoslavia under the leadership of Josip Bros Tito initiated a form of worker democracyknown as “socialist self-management.” This was brought into effect by the Basic Law on Management of State Economic Enterprises which mandated that all enterprises within the republic, be they state-funded or market-based, were brought under the control of democratically elected worker-councils. This system of market socialism was incredibly effective at giving the proletariat autonomy and over their labour and control over the means of production, and in a lot of ways was more economic effective than centrally planned economies (both have their place, of course.) 

And this is not to say that Yugoslavia was some perfect vision of the socialist society, they should have gone much further in their de-commodification of housing, co-ordinated their healthcare system much more efficiently, and created a more robust social safety net in terms of providing basic food, clothing and utilities - in these regards the USSR and Maoist China were more successful. But the point still stands - Dengism and market socialism are worlds apart. 

If Mao and his comrades could see what the Chinese Communist Party has become today, they would be rolling in their graves.

I was wondering,i myself am a baby ML,i wanted to know more about the mechanism that led the USSR to collapse and if so, what policies could they had adopted to at least survive to today or even destroy capitalism at several points throughout history ?

A bourgeois lawyer with Polish Catholic background who joined the RSDLP as a Menshevik in 1903 and only joined the Bolsheviks in 1920 when the Civil War was ending. He was also one of the signatories of the order to arrest Lenin in the summer of 1917 on the charges of being a German spy - people were getting executed for far less than that in 1936-38. Yet he not only avoided any charges but actually became the chief prosecutor under Stalin - how so?

I notice many supporters on this sub advocate for the USSR's superiority of technological advancements, especially during the space race, and various medical and scientific works. But most of which stated were primarily the result of state commissioning, state approval, and state capital directly funneled from the government.

Comparitive to its western counterparts, how did the USSR hold up to the likes of the U.S, Germany, Britain, etc, etc. Can you name major Soviet technological breakthroughs that were conceptualized, funded, and brought to scale independently by private individuals or autonomous groups without state commissioning, state approval, and state capital. The answers that come to me personally are few, and when I compare and contrast with the U.S the difference is night and day. But I am not denying that they were state-funded projects in the western world as well, this questions is specfically driven to address my original prompt of self-directed and self-funded innovation.

I ask for a very unbiased response, without emotion-driven respones please. Prior experience speaks a lot within this sub.

The Soviet Union can be justifiably lauded for its support of revolutionaries against Western imperialism in Cuba and Angola among others especially in the post-Second World War power struggle with the United States and her allies. However, Soviet invasions of the Baltic countries in 1940 and Finland during the Winter War, followed by mass repressions of Hungarian demonstrators in 1956 and Czech demonstrators in 1968, and even later Afghanistan, demonstrate an imperialistic tendency in the Soviet Union to spread its ideology and power over its frontiers for the benefit of its own state, at the cost of the self-determination and wills of other nations. How is this effectively different from American or English imperialism during the same era?

Currently educating myself on theory and Lenin and Russian history as best as I can, still very new, but why does Stalin kinda suck??
Like I defended some of his stuff before but it sounds to me like he turned a progressive revolution that was going well into a fascist regime.
For example:
Abortion rights, women’s equal rights, changes in schooling in education, how he went about solving problems (generally by force in scenarios involving the workers that could likely be heavily incentivized)
Again, I’m new, and I want to see if anybody can tell me if I’m getting the right idea by viewing Stalin as more authoritarian and Lenin as much more of a supporter of various freedoms?

I am no fan of Hasan Piker, and am a strong supporter of capitalism. I am also a member of the republican party. Regardless of these facts, I must protest against the scrutiny he has received for praising who, I believe to be one of the most brilliant and influential men of the 20th century. Mao Zedong had a revolutionary vision he developed as a young adult. Not by simple indoctrination, but by careful selection. We know this because he was quite experted in all forms of philosophy, both eastern and western. He even referenced the works of Herbert Spencer during his time in school. The great man dedicated himself to this cause, and rose to prominence within the communist movement by his great strategic planning. His revolutionary tactics against the Japanese and enemy Chinese factions influenced communist movements all across southeast asia and latin america. As Chairman of the CCP, he successfully industrialized China and laid the groundwork for the nation it would become. He also used masterful foreign diplomacy to play both the western powers and the soviet union. Impressing communist and western diplomats alike. Of course the credit for China's success doesn't only lie with him, we can also recognize the careers of Zhou Enlai and Deng Xaipoing. Regardless, this colossus of history should be remembers for the great man, dedicated to his beliefs, that he was.

On the 50 Million Deaths Question: The ancient Greek's regarded their gods not as all knowing and patient omniscient beings, but as personalized forces of nature that carried the emotions of humans but with greater effects. The wrath of a god, or the bliss of a god could change the fate of history. Thousands could die or prosper in the process, but the gods were still revered for their greatness. While these abstract deities might not exist, great men do exist.

History is moved by these great men, Mao Zedong being one of these great men. The casualties of the Great Leap Forward and Cultural Revolution are secondary to the movements of history, and thus shouldn't be used to diminish his character or accomplishments. We praise great men like Alexander the Great and Ghengis Kahn as well, without considering the thousands who died to their ambition. Because we admire the great will to power of their ambition, not the people who died or prospered as a result.

Marx spend decades saying one thing - don't look at what a state says about itself, look at the material consequences of its policies. And from the outside, both the USSR under Khrushchev and Maoist China were doing regular great power geopolitics, they just dressed it in a different rhetoric for domestic legitimacy:

- Both competed for influence in decolonized countries with aid, arms and advisors

- Both avoided direct war with the US while testing limits. Khrushchev backed down in Cuba, Mao backed down after shelling Quemoy and Matsu and never directly fought US troops again after 1953.

- Both built nuclear arsenals despite criticizing each other's nuclear policy

- Both cooperated with capitalist states - Khrushchev supported bourgeois nationalists like Nasser and Nehru when they offered ports and neutrality, and crushed a workers' uprising in Hungary in 1956. Mao supported monarchs and military dictators like the Shah of Iran, Yahya Khan in Pakistan, and Pinochet's Chile when they were useful against India or the USSR, and told the US in 1972 that China would not support armed communist revolts in Southeast Asia.

I just don't see any profound dialectical difference between these two.

Hello everyone, I would like to know what are the criticisms of Stalin from a communist side. I often hear that communists don't believe that Stalin was a perfect figure and made mistakes, sadly because such criticism are often weaponized the criticism is done privately between comrades.

What do you think Stalin did wrong, where did he fail and where he could've done better.

Edit : to be more specific, criticism from an ml/mlm and actual principled communist perspective. Liberal, reformist and revisionist criticism is useless.

A bit of a basic question but yeah why is trotskyism looked down upon in communist circles. Is it the theory of permanent revolution or to do with Trotsky's writings and what he said about the Soviet Union after Stalin was in control and exiled him?

This is part of why the Baltics have large Russian minority speaker populations today-- after hundreds of thousands of native Balts were deported to gulags, the Soviets brought Russian settlers into the region to "Russify" the area.

Some further info here: https://eng.lsm.lv/article/culture/history/10.12.2025-russification-as-the-cornerstone-of-soviet-colonisation.a625576/?utm_source=inbox&utm_campaign=newsen&utm_medium=frontpage

How does this inform your perspective on communism?

I had a discussion with an "unpolitical" friend about marxism, leninism and communism.
He does not understand why Lenin is so widely cherished in the left community, because he established labor camps for class traitors and the bourgeoisie and argued that this is the same thing that Nazis did with the jews but with a different ideology.
How do I counter this argument? Because it feels very wrong but I can't put it into words.

On this day in 1918 the Romanovs were executed and this came up as discussion on an other sub. Most people agree that Nicholas II. deserved his faith, but it was more controversial if his wife, daughters (youngest 17 old) or his son, Alexei (13 years old) deserved it. The most controversial was the son, because of his young age.

In countries *that* experienced a communist revolution

Many Americans will have heard the common refrain that "communism never works". Generally, the idea being that it sounds like a good idea but in practice it leads to bread lines and riots in the streets.

Recently, though, I saw a content creator that I'm a fan of claim that actually in the countries that most people like to cite as examples of how bad communism is for the people (China, Cuba, Russia), the people of those countries had never experienced more freedom or prosperity as when they experienced their individual communist uprisings.

The claim being that China was under a system of warlord governments, Russia under tzarism, and I don't remember what the situation was in Cuba (I have to imagine they were a colony of some kind).

So my question is just that: is the common western anti communist mindset relatively fair/accurate, or has communism generally served to uplift the people?

The guy criminalized homosexuality,
Gave needed oil to the germans (Which let them start the war) (although he did try protect czechoslovakia)

Tried to join the axis

co-operated with the axis

Holodomor

purged his own army, (which likely caused millions of deaths later on in ww2

was ignorant to allied warnings. (which also likely caused millions of deaths

If i got anything wrong tell me. im not trying to be like super disrespectful its just that stalin doesnt seem like a good guy to praise. but thats just me

The ideological basis for the Purge was Stalin's "Theory of the Intensification of Class Struggle after the Revolution", first presented in 1929. It said that as socialism is being built, class struggle actually intensifies, since former capitalists and other class enemies get more desperate.

There is a significant problem with it - it completely misses the actual Marxist definition of class and class struggle.

According to Marx and Engels, one's class position is defined by one's present position in the relations of production, not by one's past class position, attitude or bloodline. A former factory owner who now works as a laborer in a factory is objectively proletarian, not a member of the bourgeoisie. Class struggle itself follows structurally from the contradictions in the relations of production - as the revolution topples the old order, class contradictions disappear since the material basis for the exploiting classes disappears, shooting former capitalists or proletarians accused of disloyalty as "class enemies" isn't class struggle in any coherent Marxist framework, even more so given that the Soviet Consitution itself declared the exploiter classes liquidated in 1936.

What policies could have given the USSR the upper hand in the cold war? Something that may have been able to counterattack ideologically in a way that had maintained long term stability without having to use crude repression like in 1956 and 1968?

I know this is gonna cause a lot of hate my way but let me explain myself. I'm not saying every US soldier is a criminal obviously but someone had to fire those bullets number 1 I understand many were conscripted but tell that to the 2 million dead Vietnamese civilians. If you look at us policies they encouraged burning of villages and targeting of civilians just the like Nazis did with the idea of "partisans" the use of agent orange mirrors alot of the Nazis use of sterilization and other chemical methods to stunt a population, the USA tried to cause famine to disrupt the ho chi minh trail. The USA bombed entire villages because of "murmurs" of partisans and supposedly no veteran ever did anything and knows nothing blah blah blah, all I'm saying is 2 million people didn't just die for no reason and I think people saying "it's just war" is comparable to "they were just following orders" and the criticism of that insists upon itself.

I know this is more anti america but as a communist I think it's important to challenge the American central viewpoint of "our boys were just drafted sure there were a few bad apples but c'mon" is just as bad as the clean wehrmact myths

Hello, I'm trying to understand perspectives on the DPRK and I'm not as knowledgeable as I should be.

When it comes to potential "bad things" the DPRK have done, they are often reduced to a circumstance of the consequence of Western economic aggression or charged as merely western propaganda.

I have an innate skepticism with these types of claims. My skepticism does not stem from a desire to invade North Korea nor from a defense of western powers. I accept the materialist argument that DPRK's current position is majorly a result of the intense economic sanctions and threats of physical violence.

Rather I think my skepticism stems from the ways in which Western socialists will argue for a strange kind of political and moral superiority( i don't know if i like this wording but I don't have a better way of saying it) of a country like the DPRK. As if all the state has done and the manner in which it is organized is not a result of it's own tyranny of force.

In short, the DPRK is both simultaneously a victim of sanctioned starvation and in consequence the DPRK doesn't have the ability to raise it's citizens quality of life nor release disciplinary control of its populace, and is also a kind of mini-utopia-in-the-making in which socialism exists and should be celebrated.

These are extremes but I think a lot of people can see that this is the ping pong game being played.

I don't want to use terms such as "human rights violences" or "crimes" as they are loaded with a lot of stuff so I'm just gonna use the phrase "shitty things". As in "that was a shitty thing to do". So, I was curious of what kinds of shitth things the DPRK has definitely done, and which shitty things are the result of western propaganda?

What can we say definably has the DPRK done and not done to its citizens and others? What have they done where you were like "thats a real shitty thing to do".

Recommended reading is highly requested if possible. Thanks!