Five questions about Communism

runequester wrote:

I think he is referring to "liberal" as in "not conservative", rather than the more classic meaning of the term.

I don't know. Actually the conservatives are the liberals, but usualy the conservatives come with some conservative "moral" values. The progressives are moral "liberals" but state interventionists for the sake of the middle class. Who knows... By the definition you give communists are more liberals than anyone then

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So it's inevitable if the oppressed want it, but if the capitalists can keep inventing tricks to distract them then it might not be?

I don't know, what do you say? In some countries we have and had revolutions in some other not. Some revolutions were successful some defeated.. How do you explain this?
And don't take only the proletarian revolutions, take also the bourgois, or the feudal at a farer time

Here's some clarification. I was told (and read) that capitalism has to eventually collapse due to problems and contradictions from within the system (such as the basic conflict between bourgeois and prole, all that stuff) and once it collapses, or however it falls apart (maybe it the living conditions become so bad that it has to be torn apart?) then the proles overthrow capitalism. If there were no fundemental problems with capitalism, we would not have all of these terrible economic times and other problems all over the globe. If the capitalist system truly worked and needed to be "defeated" in order to fall apart then Marxism wouldn't be correct. Marx explains how chaotic capitalism is, how the ruling class exploits the proles, and lays out how the system functions and its failures. That's what I'm talking about.
As to liberalism, why even use the term if you mean capitalism? Liberalism is very broad. I mentioned the tenants of liberalism before, and saying that you dislike liberalism probably isn't true, it's the pro-capitalist part of the equation. For instance, yes, I dislike capitalism and its failures but I think that human rights, religious freedom and fair elections are very good things. To say I hate liberalism would be like saying I hate capitalism and those other things.
Also, in my country, there are two (three if you count the New Democrats but we won't right now just because it's unclear whether they believe in capitalism) major political parties; the liberals and the conservatives. Both are pretty useless but they certainly have different ways of tackling things though both believe in capitalism.
So are you saying you dislike liberals, as in people who believe in everything that liberalism has within itself, or are you saying you dislike capitalism, but you're using the broad term of liberalism to describe it?

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Here's some clarification. I was told (and read) that capitalism has to eventually collapse due to problems and contradictions from within the system (such as the basic conflict between bourgeois and prole, all that stuff) and once it collapses, or however it falls apart (maybe it the living conditions become so bad that it has to be torn apart?) then the proles overthrow capitalism

In time of deepened crisis which is also time of deepened class struggle. But this is not "collapse". In other cases when capitalism is in crisis, "lack of balance", social unrest, it may happen another bourgoise revolution, reflecting different interests, petty-bourgois for example, or maybe juntas or fasciscm appears. It has happened in the past, it happens now in some countries etc..
The capitalist crisis, doesn't autpmatically means that the working class is self-conscious as such, nor that it wants communism or sees in communism the solution or even knows what communism is.. That's the whole point.. In order to have the latter one, at first you need a communist party, at least.
Simple I think.



EDIT: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liberalism

Socialism is "inevitable" because capitalism has no mechanism to end crises. Since capitalism will provide an infinite number of crises (within resource limits) there are, as a direct result, an infinite number of revolutionary situations. We've come pretty close in the past to sparking world revolution and that was with ww1 tech. So revolution is really the inevitable thing not the victory part.

Shigalyov wrote:

The defence of capitalism as the best way of protecting things like human rights is one of Liberalism's least likeable qualities, but I have to agree that some of the causes which Liberalism champions are pretty worthwhile.
The other thing is that in some places at least, the term Liberalism seems to used by economic Laissez-faire defenders who actually have almost no interest in things like human rights but use that argument to support their economic agendas.

Yes that's right.

And we must take into account that the communist parties all over the capitalist world, supported all these movements, for example, for equal rights in men-women, peace movements, antiracist movements, education for all, no discrimination etc etc..

The whole misunderstanding comes from what existed within the Socialist world. In the biggest part it's a matter of anticommunist western propaganda, in other cases has to do with aspects that is not for the time (ie, during the dictatorship of the proletariat or later in many degenarate forms of socialism ie romania or cambodia, or china after mao etc, and some other that must be examined apart), but no is not capitalism that defends the "juman rights".. Actually in order for the western capitalist world to respect those rights, needed a long and in many cases violent struggle by the progressive society's powers, in which were also the communists, in many cases around the world as a leading force (In greece for sure -as leading- at least)

ckkomel wrote:

I don't know. Actually the conservatives are the liberals, but usualy the conservatives come with some conservative "moral" values. The progressives are moral "liberals" but state interventionists for the sake of the middle class. Who knows... By the definition you give communists are more liberals than anyone then

I think it's useful to separate the "authoritarian / libertarian" and "economic left/right" angles, since it doesn't automatically follow that everyone on the economic left is also authoritarian or libertarian as a result.

runequester wrote:

I think it's useful to separate the "authoritarian / libertarian" and "economic left/right" angles, since it doesn't automatically follow that everyone on the economic left is also authoritarian or libertarian as a result.

Ok, economic and social liberalism are two different things, but at the first place liberal philosophy included both. That's what I mean. Obviously Das means the social liberalism. But then again i'm saying that social liberalism in general, has nothing contrasting communism. Communists were "social liberals".. Atheists, equalitarian, non-racist, they even were accused that they want to abolish marriage and share "their" women

Communists were never social liberals. Communism is an anti-liberal philosophy.

@shig: Well of course sitting around for revolution is to miss the entire core of the idea. A revolutionary situation is meaningless if no one tries to seize it.

Dagoth Ur wrote:

Communists were never social liberals. Communism is an anti-liberal philosophy.

.

Because your juche

No because liberalism is the guiding ideology of the dictatorship of the bourgeoisie. Liberalism is entirely anti-worker no matter how much they play up human rights and other shit. They still support imperialism, although usually indirectly, and they fight to destroy every worker's state. This is why a communist cannot be liberals.

Yes that's why I put it in "quotation". So to be a social liberal, in the broader term have to support capitalism and imperialism? Anarchists do, for example?

There are plenty of liberals who oppose the social order but are still liberals. I'd say anarchism is an anti-liberal ideology as well even though many self-proclaimed anarchists are in fact liberals.

Ok, ok, actually it's my fault, I'm saying something under the wrong name, as conventional I guess, since I think Das focuses more on the aspect of let's say, social justice and human rights, than the actuall social liberalism, which is actually a capitalist state to adjust economy and provide for the "greater good".

Besides that I don't think that a communist would disagree with the human rights as stated, nomatter how a bourgoise state can use them to unfold anticommunist propaganda (mostly on freedom of speech for the openly anticommunist elements)

Ok, but can not it be said that those "liberals" that don't actually champion human rights, freedom of religion etc. are not actually subscribers of libertarian belief? This happens to lots of political movements. Capitalists point us to Stalin, Mao and Pol Pot and tell us that they were true die-hard communists, and then take a random number, multiply it by a million and say that's how many people communism has killed. Now, depending on your view of history, you could say that either they didn't actually kill however many, or you could say that people like Pol Pot do not accurately represent Marxism.
I'm just confused with your position that communism is anti-liberal. I mean of course it is anti-capitalist, but if we look at the libertarian ideology and not it's bourgeois leaders, we definitely some values that should be upholded.

Liberalism upholds private property as a human right. Private property, ie private control of the means of production, is an anticommunist principal.

@shig: So what are you trying to say exactly?