Right then what are your thoughts on Communism?

Question

Do you think it works or do you think it's a load of crap? I know what i think but let's see if anyone can justify it or not.

and can it be considered a religion of some sorts

Answer 1

You need to define your terms before that question can bne answered.
It depends on what you MEAN by communism.
The system in the former Soviet Ubion was State Capitalism, which is an entirely different philosophy.
Communism at its basics means 'From each according to his or her ability; to each according to his or her need'
That seems an admirable ideal to me.
The trouble is that admirable ideals need ideal people.......

Answer 2

I think Communism is one of the most evil and corrupt political ideologies ever to have been foisted on the human race. Its is very similar to Fascism as although the USSR and Germany ended up fighting ageist each other during WW2, they both share such things as the oppression of people who are deemed to be enemies of the state, a controlling of all forms of media, an overly bureaucratic structure and a total disregard for freedom of speech, thought and expression.

Communism has caused the death of more people (in the forms of famine and war) than Fascism ever did (I do not mean to absolve Fascism in any way). Communism continues to have an influence to this day. It is because Robert Mugabe has followed a Marxist/Communist agenda (by redistributing farm lad to those who can't use it) in Zimbabwe that the country has gone from being a major exporter of food in Africa to being a major recipient of food aid. A Communist engineered famine is nothing new. In Stalin's Russia, millions died of famine as a deliberate result of the Communist attempt to collectivise farming. The same thing happened in China, and more recently, in Ethiopia in the 1980's.

And then there are the people who disagree with the leadership of the Communist regime. Thousands died at Tiannmen Square when the leadership realised that they were going to lose power. In China, if you are found guilty of crimes against the state (or counter revolutionary crimes as it is sometimes called) they send you to be worked to death in a slave labour camp if you are lucky. If you're unlucky, they shoot you and charge your family the cost of the bullet that killed you.

The dictatorship of the Proletariat is the stage that many communist dictatorships get too but they never get to the final stage where Government is supposed to disappear. The problem is that the Government never disappears (and there has to be some form of Government because otherwise there would be no food, education, trade etc). Many Marxists argue that the dictatorship is a transitory stage. In the USSR they had this 'transitory' stage for 70 years and at the end of it, the country was in a complete mess which it is only now coming out of. How long does a transitory stage have to be? Cuba has had Fidel Castro as dictator for nearly half a century and the country is going backwards.

Answer 3

I think it's a load of crap, but we are sort of heading there in Britain, I mean, taxing the rich so heavily and giving the poor so many benefits, it means that nobody can have savings because they'll be taken away, and why would you biy a lovely country house because when you die the taxman would get it all. My partners family used to own all the land as far as you could see, but as each family member has died it's all been taken for taxes. I think we are in a communist state but just don't know it yet.

Answer 4

I think it's a beautiful theory, but that people, by their very nature, prevent it from working the way it does on paper.

We have a natural drive to survive and to thrive, and we will do these things at the expense of others. Some people can set that aside, but those who can't ruin it for everyone else. It can only work if everyone involved in it wants the same thing, which they generally don't.

Answer 5

In communism, there is no incentive to acheive because there is no way to make more money. The only incentive is the satisfaction that your country will benefit from your acheivements, and that only works for a certain part of the population. In order for it to work, everyone has to buy into the idea that the government should control everything, everything should be done for the benefit of the state, and individuality should be stifled, because individuals are the enemy of the state.

Answer 6

This is a sentence I found about the definition of communism:

Communism is the abolition of power of people over people. This means abolishing "oppression," whether the oppression be of nations by nations, classes by classes, women by men or any other division in society. Communism is based on mutual cooperation, peace and justice instead of oppression.

If that is true then I am all for it, but it also says that people mistake socialism and capitalism as a communist society. It says that no communist leader has ever thought we have achieved a true communist society. Maybe we should start to try and make it possible.

Answer 7

Capitalism is the subjugation of man by man. In communism it is the other way around.
Besides, how would you like to be lying in bed on a Sunday morning with a nice cup of tea, a bacon sarnie and the love of your life beside you and all you had to read was the Daily Worker?

Answer 8

It's the way things used to be before "civilization." When people cared about taking care of others and weren't out for personal gain. I think people were a lot less stressed and much more spiritual (spiritual, not religious) and connected to the Earth. Communism doesnt work because of human greed.

Answer 9

Communism doesn't work.

I do beleive in Socialism though, it is inhuman to allow some to go without whilst others have so much they waste it. Although Socialism has to be tempered with a certain amount of free enterprise just to satisfy the ambitious and greedy.

Answer 10

The "good in principle,,," argument isn't the whole story. Part of the problem is that governments go communist during times of extreme hardship so of course they don't work and result in tyranny. If a country with a sound economy, decent welfare provision and generally good quality of life decided to go communist then it might (and note the word 'might') be a roaring success.