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I hope i had a seriouss tone with the question...
I guess most of you here are born and bred in capitalist countries, so what exactly is your opinion on communism,?? My country wasnt that bad in the communist times, at least for my family but genral opinion was good. I think at some point the communist utopia was acctually achieved, but at some point things degraded do to paranoia in the leaders office.
So what makes you think communism as such a bad regime?? Do you think the contrary???

You are lucky we are not in court, this is definitly a leading question 'cause you put the sentence "communism is evil" in our mouth
I think the general idea of communism could be nice, but I also think that it can not be achieved if humes are involved, because sooner or later some humans get to self centered to accept it...
But I do not know enough about all those tries that were made up to now to really judge in there was a time where verything was great...
I guess it might be a bit of a case of the-lesser-evil... I think no form of state is perfect, but you just need one where the negativ effects...

think the general idea of communism could be nice, but I also think that it can not be achieved if humes are involved, because sooner or later some humans get to self centered to accept it...

True, ussually the man who gets the leading role in the state decides to keep his position, and that is when all the crap starts; also you might get sadistic tyrants from the begining (e.g. Stalin)

Communism ignores human nature and essentially dehumanizes them by making them never be able to rise any higher than the proletariat position to which they were consigned to.

The problem with communism as it is increadibly delicate. It only works when everyone is willing to participate in the community. If that doesn't happen than it either degrades into anarchy, or more often: fascism.

Most of the pro-communist arguments I've seen are really not pro-communist as much as they are anti-other government systems. I'd be quite willing to agree that democracy has it's problems. Churchill said "the strongest argument against democracy is a 5 minute talk with the average voter". Democracy works well enough as long as the mob is an educated one. When that's gone you'll end up with the same problem you had with the Roman empire.

Communism ignores human nature and essentially dehumanizes them by making them never be able to rise any higher than the proletariat position to which they were consigned to.

I dont agree with that., in communism you can ascend the social ladder just like in any democratic states; my own dictator Nicolae Ceausescu started as a peasant and got where he was, same thing can be said about Stalin and others. My grandpa had a same evolution from proletarian to lets say...elite.
Probably the rules for evolution differ in communism, but as i said is the same as in democracy.

The problem with communism as it is increadibly delicate. It only works when everyone is willing to participate in the community. If that doesn't happen than it either degrades into anarchy, or more often: fascism

That is why is called the communist utopia, it is nearly immposible to succed but in some instances it gets lucky and becomes something really great (i admit these cases are rare though).

tarbosaurus_geticus wrote:I dont agree with that., in communism you can ascend the social ladder just like in any democratic states; my own dictator Nicolae Ceausescu started as a peasant and got where he was, same thing can be said about Stalin and others. My grandpa had a same evolution from proletarian to lets say...elite.
Probably the rules for evolution differ in communism, but as i said is the same as in democracy.

Those are classes, the thing that Marx said communism would destroy.

That is why is called the communist utopia, it is nearly immposible to succed but in some instances it gets lucky and becomes something really great (i admit these cases are rare though).

First of all; saying a form of government is good because in the utopian form it appears good is completely irrelevent. If you apply the adjective to any form of government, by definition the government is good. e.g. In a utopian dictatorship, no one would need freedoms because the dictator wouldn't want to limit them. Yeah, and apples are purple.

There is absolutely no example of communism being a.) really great, or b.) succeding to any point of benificiality.

And anyways, communism doesn't even work in theory because it doesn't take into account human nature. You mention your dictator. Is this the look of a man who no different than the worker?

Does a man equal to others call himself Genius of the Carpathians? I'm reminded at this point of Animal Farm, "All animals are created equal, but some are more equal than others".
From Wikipedia: "The secret police (Securitate) maintained firm control over speech and the media, and tolerated no internal opposition...By 1989, Ceauşescu was showing signs of complete denial of reality. While the country was going through extremely difficult times with long bread lines in front of empty food stores, he was often shown on state TV entering stores jampacked with food supplies and praising the "high living standard" achieved under his rule. In the autumn of 1989, daily TV broadcasts were showing endless scrolling lists of CAPs (kolkhozes) with alleged record harvests, in blatant contradiction with the shortages experienced by the average Romanian at the time."

Will wrote:e.g. In a utopian dictatorship, no one would need freedoms because the dictator wouldn't want to limit them.

To be honest some time ago I considered dictorship/monarchy as the superior goverment when it comes to effectivity. The problem is always, that you willl probably never find a ruler that really thinks about his people first and then everything else.

and as mentioned before, the utopia communism willl probably not work on commune greater than ~1000 people (and you will probably have to use some kind of banning system to exclude the black sheeps).

First of all; saying a form of government is good because in the utopian form it appears good is completely irrelevent.

I did not refer myself in an utopian manner. The perfect thing i talked about happened. In the 60's and 70's things were really good (near the communist utopia at best), then things went down as you have quoted in your extract from wikipedia, as i said before Ceausescu became paranoid at some point (near 1979) and started having delussions of grandeur and signs of paranoia. Most communist attrocites in my country took place in Gheorge Dej's regime which was stalinist, not during Ceausescus reign.
If you think only communism is capable of attrocities you should check thee history of my country in the interbellum period, especcially the peasant uprisings and workers strikes which were crushed in blood by the liberal governement.

Those are classes, the thing that Marx said communism would destroy.

What Marx said Lenin didn't use to full extent, mainly what Marx said is mainly more philosophical and in theory than having practical basis.

To be honest some time ago I considered dictorship/monarchy as the superior goverment when it comes to effectivity. The problem is always, that you willl probably never find a ruler that really thinks about his people first and then everything else.

You have caught the essence there, no human beign would probably be as altruistic and noble to do everything for the people and nothing for himself, not evev caring if he remains in power or not.
I think everybody would accept a regime led by such a man, but i dought such a man would ever exist....

I've living in coutnry where was a comunism of that :-) we get our independence but living with russia was a little bit better in some spaces like prices of food drinks etc, like everyone was haved a job not like now we have about 13% in our coutry no jobs people :-) But freedom is good too becouse now we're in EU and we don't need a visas to go in other EU contrys so we can travel a little bit better and we doing that fine :-)

I think i understood most of what ou said thebeast (your english is not as bad as not to comprehend what you said).
As you can see from an other opinion things weren't as bad as most of you people think in a communist state.

Communism isn't evil, it just attracts evil leaders
Not to mention it's practically impossible..


Things may not have been bad, but I think Finland was better off not under Soviet rule.

Things may not have been bad, but I think Finland was better off not under Soviet rule.

Yes, in the case of your country it would have been better without it. But fore some countrys it really helped, it built the infrastructure, it created educational systems, important projects (like the Black Sea and Danube canal),things that would have been imposible if the democratic regime would have lingered on after the interbellum period.
Example: in the interbellum period a peasant could not aspire to anything else, because nobody would allow him to enter a good high school or a university even though he had all the good marks and the required knowledge; in the communist regime this thing was possible and widly used. Another thing: in the democratic regime, functions were awarded via corruption and the partys were to occupied with fighting among themselves than doing anything for the country , while the current king was a playboy (see Carol II of Romania for further reference, wikipedia).

Does anyone here have any idea what communism is?
Communism is inherently anarchistic. There can be only a minimal ammount of state, probably just a direct democracy or something.

Socialism is the same, except it has a government. This does not mean that they are inherently dictatorial. They could have a democracy, and that is more logical.

Communism, spelt with a capital "C", is a proper noun referring to several specific socialistic governments: North Korea, Cambodia, Russia, China, Cuba, etc. It is a form of socialism where the proletariat is still exploited, but by a different person: the state. It also necessarily involves some form of dictatorship.

Your question was posed with a lower case C, so my answer is
It isn't[/b]

Communism is inherently anarchistic. There can be only a minimal ammount of state, probably just a direct democracy or something.

You are now refeering to it on a teoretical level??? I can't see the logic of this on a practical level.
While that might be the definition of the term in some periode of time, i guess the term communism refers to something else in today's world.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Communism for further basical information.