Communism's lesser known history

[Laika]

Hey everyone,

This is a thread I've been wanting to do for a while. I don't really have a "point" for this thread beyond highlighting how selective our understanding of Communism's history is as well as sharing some historical curiosities that may be of interest. I could say alot but I kept it to five that cover some of the more interesting or unexpected areas. They aren't in any particular order.

Enjoy.

1. Communists fought in the US Civil War

Several members of the Communist league fought on the Union side in the US civil war. The communist league was the "original" communist party of which Marx and Engels were members and published the communist manifesto for. After the 1848 revolution some of its members fled to the United States and eventually became involved in the US army.

August Willich - Wikipedia

Alexander Schimmelfennig - Wikipedia

2. Bismarck and the Anti-Socialist Laws

One of the earlier attempts to eliminate Communists (or Social Democrats as they were known at the time) was in Germany under Otto von Bismarck. From 1878 to 1890 significant restrictions were placed on the activities of Social Democrats in germany which only came to an end with Bismarck's fall from power. The laws ultimately failed to achieve their objective and the Social Democrats got 19.75% of the vote in 1890 elections going on to become the largest political party in germany in the elections in 1912 before world war I.

Anti-Socialist Laws - Wikipedia

3. The Third Marxist: Joseph Dietzgen

As Marx and Engels collaborated in developing their ideas, a third person named Joseph Dietzgen, developed ideas with a strongly resemblence to Marxism in the USA. Dietzgen coined the term "dialectical materialism" and was a popular philosopher amongst Marxists until the 1930's. Due to philosophical disputes amongst the bolsheviks, Dietzgen's work was sidelined by Lenin even as the term dialectical materialism gained currency in communist circles. Under Stalin the efforts to establish a coherent marxist orthodoxy meant that Dietzgen fell out of favour whilst Marx and Engels continued to be remeber for their collaboration.

Joseph Dietzgen - Wikipedia

4. The German Revolution and the Ruhr Uprising

Germany had a extremely long association with Communist and Marxist ideas and this made Hitler's eventual victory all the more surprising.

However, the fact germany didn't go Communist was not due to lack of trying. In the aftermath of the first world war the conditions in germany edged close to civil war with revolts from both the far left and the far right. In 1919, the Sparticist uprising was launched unsuccessfully in Berlin. Several small "soviet republics" were established in this period in saxony, bravaria and alsace-lorraine (the bit that changed hands between france and germany). This was at roughly the same time that a Hungarian and Slovak Soviet Republics in 1919. These efforts were sporadic.

Spartacist uprising - Wikipedia

Bavarian Soviet Republic - Wikipedia

November 1918 in Alsace-Lorraine - Wikipedia

One of the more serious attempts however in terms of its numbers was the Ruhr uprising in which a 50,000 to 80,000 strong Red Army was established in German territory in March to April 1920. This was a response to a failed right-wing military coup (the Kapp putsch) in which a general strike was organised to bring down the military dictatorship. The uprising was eventually put down and reduced to a foot note in european history.

Ruhr uprising - Wikipedia

Ruhr Red Army - Wikipedia

5. The Jewish Autonomous Region

Early in his career Joseph Stalin was the commissar of nationalities. The way he defined a "nation" was dependent on a group having a given territory. The Jewish ethnic minority in the Soviet Union did not have a territory and this (on top of demands for a jewish homeland and the fact it was a religion in an atheistic state), greatly complicated Soviet religions with the jewish people. so in the late 1920's the "Jewish Autonomous Region" was established in the hope of giving Soviet jews (as an ethnic group) a homeland. Aside from Israel, it remains the worlds only offically jewish territory.

Jewish Autonomous Oblast - Wikipedia

 

[Parchment]

The 1986 Berlin discotheque bombing, it didn't really matter because the place was a dive anyway that smelled of stale beer and urine and it seemed a hangout for black U.S. service members and the small ammount of German societies coal burner wimmen that always seemed used up at the age of 25.

 

[Laika]

The 1986 Berlin discotheque bombing, it didn't really matter because the place was a dive anyway that smelled of stale beer and urine and it seemed a hangout for black U.S. service members and the small ammount of German societies coal burner wimmen that always seemed used up at the age of 25.

There are lots of reasons to be pissed at or otherwise hate communism. I get that. But so far as I can tell- you completely missed the target.

"A 2001 Trial found that the bombing had been planned by the Libyan secret service and the Libyan embassy."

1986 Berlin discotheque bombing - Wikipedia

4 Guilty in Fatal 1986 Berlin Disco Bombing Linked to Libya

If your looking for Communist terrorist organisations to criticise you are spoilt for choice: the Red Army Faction in West Germany is an easy one to remember. Weather Underground is an American one perhaps closer to home. Although the Japanese Red Army Faction was pretty gruesome when they began purging (killing) members of their own terrorist organisation in 1972. Communists are crazy but killing your freinds and comrades takes a special kind of crazy that only the ideological zealot can muster.

Asama-Sansō incident - Wikipedia

 

[Parchment]

There are lots of reasons to be pissed at or otherwise hate communism. I get that. But so far as I can tell- you completely missed the target.

And the fact that I stood shoulder to shoulder with Comrades of all colours linked together with connective bars to push back protesters on a regular basis?

 

[Laika]

And the fact that I stood shoulder to shoulder with Comrades of all colours linked together with connective bars to push back protesters on a regular basis?

Can you elaborate? You've totally lost me.

 

[Parchment]

Can you elaborate? You've totally lost me.

Of course I did, it's a personal story not backed up with any media.

 

[Laika]

Of course I did, it's a personal story not backed up with any media.

You mean you are an ex-communist?

 

[Parchment]

You mean you are an ex-communist?

You spin it however you need to spin it, I'm done.

 

[suncowiam]

Have you actually lived in a communist setting? I have and much of my older family. And they did stuff like literally take a boat to sea with little provisions and no plan to try to escape it.

So many "communists" here that haven't even experience a real world communist country.

At least be happy that you live in a society that allows you freedom to discuss whatever communistic ideals you like.

 

[Laika]

Have you actually lived in a communist setting? I have and much of my older family. And they did stuff like literally take a boat to sea with little provisions and no plan to try to escape it.

So many "communists" here that haven't even experience a real world communist country.

At least be happy that you live in a society that allows you freedom to discuss whatever communistic ideals you like.

You're welcome to share your experiences if you wish.

 

[suncowiam]

You're welcome to share your experiences if you wish.

Well, let's start. My property was taken away from our family. My dad was put into a "re-education" camp and for some reason, it believed that re-educating needed a whip as a tool. Uhm, we didn't make much to begin with but now we're all the same status because apparently our country's medium salary and status was even lower...

Care to share your experience with communism?

 

[suncowiam]

I'm sorry about your experiences.
What country was this in?

Vietnam, toward the end of 1970s, particularly at the shift of government policies...

Noone has lived in a "communist setting" as the communist society has never emerged from a socialist state.
If you are asking if we have lived in a Communist setting (note capitalisation; as to indicate name/ideology rather than accomplishment,) then I doubt any communist here has such experiences.

Until we ever get the chance to do anything with our discussion, then they throw us in jails too.

Why do you think a "true" communist society has never emerged from any state? Is it from a lack of trying or from complete failure when trying?

I don't quite understand your last comment. To my knowledge, communists are not throw in jail and there is a political system to change policies, albeit a popular system most of the time. Well, at least in the present time US but you probably are pointing to other cases, which I can agree with you.

 

[suncowiam]

Well communists envision a society without government or class, which is eventually reached after a socialist state withers away once it's purpose is succeeded. The term "communist society" would refer to this sort of a society without class or government which has never been achieved. Communist state (capitalisation included) would be what you are referring to.


The ideology of most communists is a revolutionary one. The complete ruling structure within liberal capitalist societies needs to be completely built from the ground up. By extension the capitalist state must be overthrown in order to build the socialist state. Understandably any government is going to prevent this uprising from occurring.


We are allowed to talk about it now. However things like FBI infiltration in communist parties are quite common and one has to attest that they are not a communist to join the FBI.


I don't know much about Vietnam in this time period. However I can say with most certainty that nobody here is supporting the sort of things you mentioned (besides seizure of property).

Any discussion into idealistic communism, let's call it proper communism, begins and ends with theories.

Here's my opinion of proper communism.

It won't work because someone will always take more. It's just human nature. Without government or even a military force, it cannot enforce these ideals. Is this plausible from a theory point of view?

How does proper communism address these basic issues?

 

[ShivaFan]

Chinese communists need to get out of Tibet, stop the genocide of Tibetans and the land grab by communists to displace Tibetans with Han Chinese, stop the orchestrated communist campaign of terror against Buddhists both Tibetan and Chinese.

 

[Laika]

Well, let's start. My property was taken away from our family. My dad was put into a "re-education" camp and for some reason, it believed that re-educating needed a whip as a tool. Uhm, we didn't make much to begin with but now we're all the same status because apparently our country's medium salary and status was even lower...

Care to share your experience with communism?

I have never lived in a communist country but have been a communist sympathiser my entire adult life (since age 14 onwards). At 18/19 I had a serious bout of depression and effectively a mental breakdown due to a combination of factors including coming to terms with being bisexual that forced me to leave university. what started as a casual interest took on an intensity of a religious conversion as I needed "answers". I remember the next two or three years as an ugly fanatical period that I try to forget as mental illness and radicalisation converged. I had an unrequited sexual/romantic interest in a politics student I knew at university and he travelled to cambodia. I decided I needed better answers to how to deal with the moral questions regarding communist atroticites as he was the one person I wouldn't lie to or seek to decieve if he'd asked me about the killing fields. So I read the black book of communism. Since then I have never really been able to "shake off" the feeling of being "unclean" and "dirty" along with shame and guilt for being a communist. For what its worth that love, guilt and inner struggle was the reason I tried to stop my freind and crush taking a job as an arms dealer. He ignored me so that was all I could do.

At the start of 2015, age 24 I joined RF and also joined the communist party (even though I had deep reservations I knew it was a mistake I needed to make). After I told them i joined , my parents barely spoke to me for a month even though we live in the same house and threatened to go to the police if I did anything "stupid" as well as threatening to write a clause in their will prohibiting any of their inheritence going to the communist Party. Five months later I left the party as I became more certian of my doubts. The rest of my time has been on RF discussing communism and marxism here and struggling to reconcile my politics with my conscience.

I think thats it really.

 

[suncowiam]

I have never lived in a communist country but have been a communist sympathiser my entire adult life (since age 14 onwards). At 18/19 I had a serious bout of depression and effectively a mental breakdown due to a combination of factors including coming to terms with being bisexual that forced me to leave university. what started as a casual interest took on an intensity of a religious conversion as I needed "answers". I remember the next two or three years as an ugly fanatical period that I try to forget as mental illness and radicalisation converged. I had an unrequited sexual/romantic interest in a politics student I knew at university and he travelled to cambodia. I decided I needed better answers to how to deal with the moral questions regarding communist atroticites as he was the one person I wouldn't lie to or seek to decieve if he'd asked me about the killing fields. So I read the black book of communism. Since then I have never really been able to "shake off" the feeling of being "unclean" and "dirty" along with shame and guilt for being a communist. For what its worth that love, guilt and inner struggle was the reason I tried to stop my freind and crush taking a job as an arms dealer. He ignored me so that was all I could do.

At the start of 2015, age 24 I joined RF and also joined the communist party (even though I had deep reservations I knew it was a mistake I needed to make). After I told them i joined , my parents barely spoke to me for a month even though we live in the same house and threatened to go to the police if I did anything "stupid" as well as threatening to write a clause in their will prohibiting any of their inheritence going to the communist Party. Five months later I left the party as I became more certian of my doubts. The rest of my time has been on RF discussing communism and marxism here and struggling to reconcile my politics with my conscience.

I think thats it really.

Thanks for sharing.

In my early adulthood, I had conflicts about America, Vietnam and the war. I sided with Ho Chi Minh for trying to keep Vietnam as a whole and was very anti-America but, years later, I changed that belief. After several visits to Vietnam and being able to compare the quality of life between myself, who immigrated to the US, and those like my family members who remained, I realized that Ho Chi Minh made a mistake. Vietnam was by all accounts, a third world nation. At the time, I was not fat by any means but I was the fattest person in my Vietnam trips. It didn't stop at nutrition. Other subjects like education, health and especially freedom were very distinguishable between the two countries. Then further comparisons between another very similar situation between North Korea and South Korea made it evident that Communism simply does not work. Not only does it not work, it is a detriment to the human race. I now believe that if the US won the Vietnam war, then Vietnam would be very much like today's South Korea, a thriving democratic capitalistic country. With that said, Vietnam in recent years has made great strides by opening its border for trade and economics. It is doing much better now and I do not consider it as impoverished as it was before.

 

[suncowiam]

I have never lived in a communist country but have been a communist sympathiser my entire adult life (since age 14 onwards). At 18/19 I had a serious bout of depression and effectively a mental breakdown due to a combination of factors including coming to terms with being bisexual that forced me to leave university. what started as a casual interest took on an intensity of a religious conversion as I needed "answers". I remember the next two or three years as an ugly fanatical period that I try to forget as mental illness and radicalisation converged. I had an unrequited sexual/romantic interest in a politics student I knew at university and he travelled to cambodia. I decided I needed better answers to how to deal with the moral questions regarding communist atroticites as he was the one person I wouldn't lie to or seek to decieve if he'd asked me about the killing fields. So I read the black book of communism. Since then I have never really been able to "shake off" the feeling of being "unclean" and "dirty" along with shame and guilt for being a communist. For what its worth that love, guilt and inner struggle was the reason I tried to stop my freind and crush taking a job as an arms dealer. He ignored me so that was all I could do.

At the start of 2015, age 24 I joined RF and also joined the communist party (even though I had deep reservations I knew it was a mistake I needed to make). After I told them i joined , my parents barely spoke to me for a month even though we live in the same house and threatened to go to the police if I did anything "stupid" as well as threatening to write a clause in their will prohibiting any of their inheritence going to the communist Party. Five months later I left the party as I became more certian of my doubts. The rest of my time has been on RF discussing communism and marxism here and struggling to reconcile my politics with my conscience.

I think thats it really.

Hey, I forgot to mention that I'm sure you'll find your answers. It will come, just enjoy the journey and don't forget to smell the flowers.

Good luck.

 

[Laika]

Thanks for sharing.

In my early adulthood, I had conflicts about America, Vietnam and the war. I sided with Ho Chi Minh for trying to keep Vietnam as a whole and was very anti-America but, years later, I changed that belief. After several visits to Vietnam and being able to compare the quality of life between myself, who immigrated to the US, and those like my family members who remained, I realized that Ho Chi Minh made a mistake. Vietnam was by all accounts, a third world nation. At the time, I was not fat by any means but I was the fattest person in my Vietnam trips. It didn't stop at nutrition. Other subjects like education, health and especially freedom were very distinguishable between the two countries. Then further comparisons between another very similar situation between North Korea and South Korea made it evident that Communism simply does not work. Not only does it not work, it is a detriment to the human race. I now believe that if the US won the Vietnam war, then Vietnam would be very much like today's South Korea, a thriving democratic capitalistic country. With that said, Vietnam in recent years has made great strides by opening its border for trade and economics. It is doing much better now and I do not consider it as impoverished as it was before.

For what it is worth on the subject of north and south korea, I think before 1970 they were comparable economically. It was only after then that the South took off. South korea surpressed a communist uprising on jeju island in 1948 (with somewhere between 14,000 and 30,000 people died in the process). There was a dictatorship in South Korea for a time under general Park (1961-1979).Its still illegal to be a communist in south korea under the national security act there (though thats understandable in a way given its unique situation). Many North Korean defectors struggle to adapt to life in the South and there are very limited provisions for re-unification which would be extremely expensive for the south to revitalise the north's economy.

That said, these are only minor qualifications in a larger picture that clearly does favour South Korea as freer and more prosperous than the North. I think the clip below is all that really needs to be said on the human rights situation there. Its easily the least free country in the world by western standards. (There is a full movie on youtube "camp 14: total control zone" which is both very dusturbing and very moving if you want the "uncensored" version of what goes on there).

As I have got older and more willing and comfortable to criticise Communism. Thats especially true from within the ideology itself as its almost a responsibility to do so. The nature of communist ideology as a "total" worldview however means it is very difficult to make a clean break from. But the better I understand it and know its history the more I feel an urgency to walk away from it or find some "peace" with it. It would be alot easier if there was an alternative I could turn to for a optimistic vision of the future but thats hard to come by these days (in large part due to how communism, fascism and the two world wars undermined our collective self-assurance).

Hey, I forgot to mention that I'm sure you'll find your answers. It will come, just enjoy the journey and don't forget to smell the flowers.

Good luck.

Thanks. That is much appreciated.

 

[suncowiam]

For what it is worth on the subject of north and south korea, I think before 1970 they were comparable economically. It was only after then that the South took off. South korea surpressed a communist uprising on jeju island in 1948 (with somewhere between 14,000 and 30,000 people died in the process). There was a dictatorship in South Korea for a time under general Park (1961-1979).Its still illegal to be a communist in south korea under the national security act there (though thats understandable in a way given its unique situation). Many North Korean defectors struggle to adapt to life in the South and there are very limited provisions for re-unification which would be extremely expensive for the south to revitalise the north's economy.

That said, these are only minor qualifications in a larger picture that clearly does favour South Korea as freer and more prosperous than the North. I think the clip below is all that really needs to be said on the human rights situation there. Its easily the least free country in the world by western standards. (There is a full movie on youtube "camp 14: total control zone" which is both very dusturbing and very moving if you want the "uncensored" version of what goes on there).

As I have got older and more willing and comfortable to criticise Communism. Thats especially true from within the ideology itself as its almost a responsibility to do so. The nature of communist ideology as a "total" worldview however means it is very difficult to make a clean break from. But the better I understand it and know its history the more I feel an urgency to walk away from it or find some "peace" with it. It would be alot easier if there was an alternative I could turn to for a optimistic vision of the future but thats hard to come by these days (in large part due to how communism, fascism and the two world wars undermined our collective self-assurance).



Thanks. That is much appreciated.

Here's a statistical comparison between the two countries. Go down each index and I'm pretty sure you'll pick the country on the right in conclusion.

South v North Korea: how do the two countries compare? Visualised

The comparison was only made between two countries. The output of any country should be assumed to be the direct result of its government. Although, I think we can both agree that dictatorships probably play a major role but we simply can't deny other factors like Communism, Democracy and Capitalism.

Don't forget, that South Korea is one of the youngest of the "freer" countries to adopt a democracy. Much to improve but still much much much much much better than North Korea.

Map - Democracies

 

[Vinayaka]

For anyone interested in China, and the communist revolution, I would recommend this documentary case study: Fanshen: A Documentary of Revolution in a Chinese Village | Monthly Review Press I had to study it 40 years ago in a university class, and it was an eye-opener for me, in that it cleared up some misconceptions I had held.