Enter SL Herald staff rubbing hands with glee,

the more controversial, the more people read and react.

Job done.

We agree on something! Yes, the reasoned exchange of ideas is truely beneficial for all.

Indeed. But you could link communism in poverty in the same way you could link the fact that communist countries traditionally faced overwhelming roadblocks from the West during the beginning of their development. China and Cuba, for example, were immediately embargoed by the United States and much of the West almost as soon as they went communist. Granted, countries should not use embargoes as excuses for poverty, but they do indeed make things harder for developing economies.

“Why have so many nations given up on communism? China, Russia, Vietnam, etc… are all moving towards capitalist market economies and are experiencing great wealth creation as a result. They are abandoning the communist system because it doesn’t work.”

None of them has abandoned it completely, except perhaps Russia, which is sliding into authoritarianism and whose second most popular party is the Communist Party of Russia. They have used market forces to a degree because – and I will agree with you here 100% – they DO create wealth much faster. But they do not equitably distribute it. This is our conflict.

“Is North Korea poor because of what took place before the communists took over? The fighting stopped 55 years ago – the south recovered and became an economic powerhouse while people in the north rely on food and fuel shipments from the west to survive. The people are the same in the north and south, but communism dominates the north. Look at this photo from space: http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/world/dprk/dprk-dark.htm – For the most part, the North Koreans live in the dark.”

Saying Kim-Jong Il represents communism or socialism because he claims to is like saying he supports democracy because he calls his country the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea. Yes, he’s crazy. We don’t defend him.

“Stalin was one of the biggest mass murders in history – he killed more people than even the Nazis. Most of the people he killed were his own countrymen. Yes, I’m sure the “beneficiaries” did decry his purges. Millions of people were killed or sent off to work camps in the east – many of them were loyal and committed no crime other than being marked for persecution by Stalin. Other soviet leaders may have been ideologically pure, but Stalin was simply a monster.”

We don’t universally defend Stalin either, but we do not agree with the ludicrous claims that he killed 70 million people that some float, though. We think he was a great leader for leading his country to industrialization and to victory against Nazism which would have simply not been possible for the world otherwise. Stalin took power in a country with almost no industry or infrastructure, and that had, from 1914 in World War I to 1924 after the end of the Civil War in Russia, gone through a decade of war that destroyed what little industry and infrastructure there was. When famine struck in the 20s and early 30s, it was hard to deal with because the Soviet Union was simply unable to effectively respond to much of anything at this time. It was weak, and Stalin turned it around through his guidance of the Soviet people.

I do not like to get into casualty debates, but after taking out the 20-30 million civilians killed by Nazi action, the people who died in a famine, and those genuine traitors who wanted to bring down the Soviet regime, there were perhaps 4 million people in Soviet prisons, and in a country of 200 million people, while this is a high number, America has 3 million prisoners for 300 million people. There were labor camps, indeed, but this is because Soviet philosophy ran under the idea that labor could be redemptive. If you think the Gulag was harsher, you’re right. It was probably too harsh. But if you’re going to neglect the rest of his achievements because Stalin was harsh on criminals and enemies of the regime, then that’s a bit unfair.

“There are no food lines in Russia today – food is available where it once was scare under soviet rule only a coupled decades ago. Russia has adopted some market reforms and has benefited from it. Remember, it collapsed under communist rule, not capitalist.”

The Soviet Union collapsed after Gorbachev’s market reforms. It also collapsed because it foolishly tried to compete with America’s military before it could compete with the size of America’s economy. Soviet leadership after Stalin went southward, or at least after Khrushchev. Russia’s economy may have benefited, but its society – thanks to having a higher rate of births than deaths, a growing problem with alcoholism, for example, is not.

“You seem to believe that the west spreads by the force of arms…. The western allied forces returned the nations they liberated to their people after WW2. The soviets, by contrast, kept all the territories they captured during the war – forcing those nations to become satellite states – building walls to keep the people from leaving. Remember the Berlin wall? I seem to remember other wars of expansion of the communists – Tibet, Korea, Vietnam, Afghanistan, etc… Left wing groups also launched attacks in western Europe between the 1960s and 1980s. However, I suspect nothing I could say would sway you from the belief that the current wars fought by the US and its allies are imperialist actions, so I will not even try.”

All empires spread by force of arms. The Allies did indeed liberate their European conquests, but what of the rest of the world? Did the British, French and Americans liberate North Africa and Asia, or simply restore it to rule by West European empires rather than the empires of Germany or Japan?

Tibet was a war by China to reassert control it already had in another part of its country. Korea and Vietnam were attempts to reunite unjustly divided countries. Both were proxy wars as well. Afghanistan was under siege by Islamic extremists in 1979. Just like in 2001, when the U.S. went in. Both were justified. The Soviets did do a terrible job there, though.

Not all wars of the U.S. or West are bad. Many are just. But the capitalist societies have, especially in the colonial heyday of the 19th century, conquered most of the world through military force.

“Free market capitalism is not without problems to be sure, but the evidence suggest it provides the most good for the most people compared to other systems. Capitalism does not steal wealth – it creates wealth by unleashing man’s potential and improving efficiency.”

Here again, we disagree that it does the best for the most. It is efficient in a way and it is powerful in another. We’re talking about spreading the wealth among all rather than among a comparatively concentrated few.

“Yes, the food for the poor may not be top quality, but by your own admission , it is cheap and plentiful.”

McDonalds is cheap and plentiful, for example. It will kill you. Cheap and plentiful is not necessarily a good thing 100% of the time.

“Capitalism also allows for something very dear to me – freedom. I can choose where to live, what kind of house to live in, what car to drive, the type of job I want, etc, etc…. The centralized economic policies inherent in communism invariably lead to absolute control over people’s lives. They become totalitarian states with little to no personal freedom. This has occurred in every communist nation.”

Soviet democracy did not pan out as it should have; Stalin was no democrat. But, the idea of workers running industries democratically is no less valid as a result of what happened as is the idea of governments being run democratically just because many of them collapse, too. We believe you can combine the best of the Soviet Union with real, grassroots democracy too. But in a society where equality is important, there are indeed strict constraints of some kind to ensure this is the case.

“While I will assume you have read the works of Marx, I would like to suggest Friedrich Hayek’s The Road to Serfdom. He explains all of this far better than I could ever hope to. Lastly, my comments should not be interpreted as anti-Russian. I have great respect and admiration for the Russian people. My comments are solely about communism as a economic and ideological system. Take my words for what they are worth.

Take care,
Darken”

Comrade, I am indeed happy we could have a reasonable argument that did not involve you calling us kiddies or terrorists or griefers or what. We’re just people with different ideas. We don’t plan to force them on anyone, and nor could we if we chose to. I know you are not against Russia or anything; equally though, I hope you do not just see us as Russians, since we are not all Russian either. Either way, thank you for the discussion – whenever two people are challenged to defend their points, both people come out better for it.

Thank you,
Supercool Sautereau

And I asked her in-world, and she confirmed the post accredited to her that began with “Whoever is forging my name is not doing a very good job of writing…” and was bullet pointed and defending Kal was in fact not her. Artemis rules.

Why have so many nations given up on communism? China, Russia, Vietnam, etc… are all moving towards capitalist market economies and are experiencing great wealth creation as a result. They are abandoning the communist system because it doesn’t work.

Is North Korea poor because of what took place before the communists took over? The fighting stopped 55 years ago – the south recovered and became an economic powerhouse while people in the north rely on food and fuel shipments from the west to survive. The people are the same in the north and south, but communism dominates the north. Look at this photo from space: http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/world/dprk/dprk-dark.htm – For the most part, the North Koreans live in the dark.

Stalin was one of the biggest mass murders in history – he killed more people than even the Nazis. Most of the people he killed were his own countrymen. Yes, I’m sure the “beneficiaries” did decry his purges. Millions of people were killed or sent off to work camps in the east – many of them were loyal and committed no crime other than being marked for persecution by Stalin. Other soviet leaders may have been ideologically pure, but Stalin was simply a monster.

There are no food lines in Russia today – food is available where it once was scare under soviet rule only a coupled decades ago. Russia has adopted some market reforms and has benefited from it. Remember, it collapsed under communist rule, not capitalist.

You seem to believe that the west spreads by the force of arms…. The western allied forces returned the nations they liberated to their people after WW2. The soviets, by contrast, kept all the territories they captured during the war – forcing those nations to become satellite states – building walls to keep the people from leaving. Remember the Berlin wall? I seem to remember other wars of expansion of the communists – Tibet, Korea, Vietnam, Afghanistan, etc… Left wing groups also launched attacks in western Europe between the 1960s and 1980s. However, I suspect nothing I could say would sway you from the belief that the current wars fought by the US and its allies are imperialist actions, so I will not even try.

Free market capitalism is not without problems to be sure, but the evidence suggest it provides the most good for the most people compared to other systems. Capitalism does not steal wealth – it creates wealth by unleashing man’s potential and improving efficiency.

Yes, the food for the poor may not be top quality, but by your own admission , it is cheap and plentiful.

Capitalism also allows for something very dear to me – freedom. I can choose where to live, what kind of house to live in, what car to drive, the type of job I want, etc, etc…. The centralized economic policies inherent in communism invariably lead to absolute control over people’s lives. They become totalitarian states with little to no personal freedom. This has occurred in every communist nation.

While I will assume you have read the works of Marx, I would like to suggest Friedrich Hayek’s The Road to Serfdom. He explains all of this far better than I could ever hope to.

Lastly, my comments should not be interpreted as anti-Russian. I have great respect and admiration for the Russian people. My comments are solely about communism as a economic and ideological system. Take my words for what they are worth.

Take care,
Darken

The Soviet Union was not a horrible hell-hole; it was in the beginning, and leaders like Stalin tried to turn things around. Unfortunately, in doing so, his rightful attempts to bring his nation to strength were decried by their very beneficiaries – the Western nations, who, thanks to a strong Soviet Union, could leave the majority of the dying in World War II to the Russians. Had he not reformed his country, it would have been annihilated. Communism takes root in countries struck by capitalism’s imperialistic back hand – those countries are poor because of their previous administration.

Blaming communists for the immediate condition of their countries in the first few post-revolution years is ridiculous; they inherit a bad situation and must try to better it. Which is no easy task in vast nations like Russia and China, either, for example.

Communism, as a system and an ideology, was a miserable failure responsible for suffering on an unimaginable scale in the last 100 years. How many millions must die before people give up on this flawed utopian dream?

The handful of places that still cling to this system are horrible hell holes where people starve, have almost no freedom, and risk their very lives to escape. These communist nations build walls and have security forces devoted to keeping people from leaving. I think it is telling that those living under communism risk everything to escape it. If life is so wonderful there then why do they run away?

By contrast – western nations, with their free market capitalism, have so many people trying to get in that they must build walls to keep people out! Millions risk their lives to enter these nations every year. Food is so abundant in these nations that obesity is a serious problem, even among the poor! You have the freedom to live life as you choose in these nations. Heck, you can even build a commune on your property if you want.

We can get into a discussion of the finer points if you like, but the example above should be all the evidence needed for most people to realize that communism is simply a bad idea who’s time has come and gone.

For the reasons I list and for many more, I find the glorification of the old Soviet Union to be deplorable. But, because SL is based in the US where free speech is protected, these people can play communist and promote the idea all they want. They are exercising a freedom of ideology and belief that would not have been tolerated in the communist states they adore. They are free to do as they wish, just as I am free to decry it as despicable, tasteless, and indifferent to the millions slaughtered in the name of communism.

I actually concede to your point that Kalel here might not be Kalel, since even though these are things I think Kalel would say or has said, it’s taken to the next step of extreme, which is why I was surprised at first and just thought he’d taken a nosedive off the deep end. While I’m still not entirely convinced that that is infact someone other than Kalel, I can’t really prove otherwise, nor think of a good reason why you’d even want to set up something like that, so I’m just going to stay out of it.

P.S.: I’m an awful writer, and thus don’t attack people for grammatical mistakes and errors unless it’s txtspk.

P.P.S.: I don’t like to bullet point things.

P.P.P.S: Bout is a fun word.

P.P.P.P.S: My points outside of Kalel being crazy still stand.

P.P.P.P.P.S: I like making these postscripts.

P.P.P.P.P.P.S: I’m doing science and I’m still alive.

Well, I “need” a house and a sex bed and I can’t afford them or afford any land. Please help. Thank you very much.

PS .. how can anyone take seriously someone who made the decision when signing up to use “Supercool” as his name? LOL