I saw the following meme on a Twitter thread whose own meme and premise pretty much claimed that the swastika (representing nazism) and the hammer-and-sickle (representing communism) were essentially the same and both systems (essentially Hitler’s Germany and Stalin’s Soviet Union) were equally murderous and guilty of slavery.
Now, I’m not going to apologize for either Schicklgruber or Jughashvill or their regimes and actions; comparing body counts and brutalities is a pointless exercise when dealing with tens of millions dead, tortured, enslaved, etc. And, yes, one brought a defeated nation back from hyperinflation, built the Autobahn, and gave us the Volkswagon, and the other brought an agricultural peasantry into the industrial 20th century, and sacrificed 25 million citizens to defeat the scourge the first guy represented.
But I’m tired of the hoary blather often spewed online that EITHER authoritarian totalitarian Nazism OR authoritarian totalitarian Soviet-style state capitalist Stalinism were classical examples of “socialism”!
After all, the former claimants say, “Socialism is right there in the name of the National Socialist German Workers’ Party, hence it comes right out and declares itself socialist!” Well, just because you call yourself something, in this case to appeal to left-wing workers in depression-plagued Germany, doesn’t make it true. How “democratic” is the USA’s Democrat Party? How much does Britain’s Labour Party fight for laborers? No, it’s just clever but cynical branding.
Same with post-czarist bolshevism. Oh, many of those who opposed the czar, carried red flags, set up workers’ councils (soviets), and established the first post-czarist Russian Provisional Government (primarily the Menshevik faction of the Russian Social Democratic Labor Party, emerging as far back as the 1903 Second Party Congress, as opposed to Lenin’s Bolshevik faction) were true-blue (true “red”!) communists, who understood Marxism and the economic and social analysis of class struggle, and the sins of capitalism.
The details of the 1917 revolutions and aftermath, party schisms and alignments, are as convoluted as a Tolstoy novel. (On a personal note, I saw Alexander Kerensky, the Menshevik chairman of the Russian Provisional Government and Russian Republic from late July to early November 1917, when he spoke at Queens College shortly before his death in 1970.) But, ultimately, after a bloody civil war, Stalin and his cabal gained control of the government and the post-czarist empire, and ruled with an iron fist for decades, establishing centralized dictatorial control over nearly every aspect of life, yet never quite fulfilling the central tenets of communism: a socialist system where the workers own and control the means of production, class distinction and privilege is abolished, and political decisions are made at the most local level possible, as the state “withers away.”
The meme, with a picture of Karl Marx in the center, would have you believe that THIS is what Marx proposed and that THIS is what a “real” communist system “does,” and when it fails, that’s because it’s inherent IN communism to fail and get itself off the hook by saying, “Oh, that wasn’t ‘real’ communism,” and then starts the supposed racket all over again (without saying if it does so in the same locale, or somewhere new).
I replied to this particular person, whom I sure didn’t create the meme, but only copied it, as follows, by eliminating and correcting the false strawman claims. Although the person or meme doesn’t specify WHICH “communist” examples this refers to (because it’s equally fallacious whether it targets the most obvious one, supposedly the Soviet Union, or all supposed “communist utopias” the anti-communist mind imagines actually existed on Earth), it doesn’t much matter whether a specific example is used, or an amalgam strawman, as the reality of what actually happened follows the same actual pattern, as follows:
1. Establish an autocratic, authoritarian, top-down, state capitalist regime under the GUISE of "communism," to fool the proletariat into supporting it.
2. Fight a civil war, if necessary, to marginalize or eliminate actual communists, socialists, reformers, moderates, etc.
3. Refuse to turn over ownership and control of the means of production to the workers.
4. Refuse to abolish class distinctions and privilege.
5. Refuse to devolve political control and decisions to the most local level possible, ideally worker collectives.
6. When things go bad, make excuses, blame and kill those who criticize the bad decisions and policies.
7. When anti-communists abroad call this non-communist totalitarian dictatorship "communism," don't disagree, in order to keep the proletariat's support.
8. When anti-communists abroad use sanctions and other overt and covert methods to weaken, confound, and ultimately starve and destroy the besieged authoritarian regime, those anti-communist forces can point to the ruins and declare communism/socialism to be unworkable.
And, as I concluded to the meme’s poster, “There, I fixed it for you.”
Here's most of my response to a comment on Faceabook that wanted clarification of my FB post linking to this Substack essay; I don't know if the person read the essay, which I advised reading if hadn't had, but the rest addresses several questions or points she made:
I despise the misuses and worship of capitalism and the inherent need to exploit consumers and workers, rape the environment, and put profits over people.
I despise fascism because it puts the power of centralized government behind the excesses of corporatist capitalism.
I despise centralized, authoritarian, totalitarian state capitalism that CALLS ITSELF communism or socialism but which IS NOT either, as it puts ownership and control of the means of production in the hands of an oligarchic centralized government, NOT in the hands of the workers, doesn't eliminate class distinction and privilege, and doesn't devolve political decisions to the most local level as the state "withers away," all of which are essential in an ACTUAL socialist/communist system. IF it doesn't manifest THOSE essential components, IT IS NOT SOCIALISM/COMMUNISM, no matter what supporters or critics call it!
Real communism/socialism does NOT necessarily need tyranny; indeed, by definition, if ACTUAL socialism is introduced, there is no need FOR tyrannical central oligarchic control. Since NO nation-sized examples of REAL socialism exist or have existed, ALL "examples" of their "failure" are pointing to the strawmen of state capitalism that have been called "communism" by both their detractors and those using the banner to rally the workers to their support.
The flaw in "utopian ideals" is often in the PERSONS and their flaws rather than the concepts of the system itself; the same can be said for the flaws in US Constitutional government, the flawed persons, rather than the ideals in the organic system it established. Sure, the idea of three branches of government (John Locke's 2nd treatise elaborates this) as checks and balances is great and an "ideal" that makes sense. Alas, crooked, greedy, corrupt persons have figured out how to "play" that system for their benefit, greased by the power that capital can wield over executive, legislative, and judicial officials. As a philosopher of economics, Marx pointed this out and why capitalism was doomed to devour itself in time, in effect, "selling the rope used to hang itself."
My essay at substack picks each supposed claim in the above meme and "fixes" it by expressing what REALLY happened in specific or generalized examples of so-called "communist" regimes that were really NOT communist at all (as they failed to even TRY to deliver the three essential foundations OF socialism) but have been USED by critics of communism to "prove" that "communism" doesn't work.
"Force the rest to work for free"???
Here's how capitalism does it:
https://thehill.com/homenews/state-watch/4116267-forced-labor-may-be-common-in-u-s-food-system-study/