O.K. there was no free enterprise, that doesn’t make it a real communist state.
Free enterprise was done away with, indeed with the communist ideal in mind, long before Stalin took power. He worked with what the Bolsheviks had left for him to use and turned that into a fascist state .
I am not convinced that lack of free enterprise, constitutes enough difference to call Stalinist Russia a communist regime, rather than a fascist. I don’t think there can be such a thing as a ‘totalitarian-communist state’. Communism is the direct opposite of totalitarian.
Anyway, the point was that the level of oppression wasn’t a criterium,
you do agree on that one?
Oh come on, Latro. Do you seriously think a communist state can exist without devolving into totalitarianism? Name one that has. A communist state pretty much has to be totalitarian. How else can you force people to abandon free enterprise, religion, ownership of property, etc.? Only through a single-party state with total power.
Communism is the totalitarianism of the left. Fascism is the totalitarianism of the right. Fascism is one type of totalitarianism. Communism is another type. Both are totalitarian, but they are not the same thing. The total power of the state is being used to different ends. (And yes, to answer your last question, they are both oppressive.)
I’m not saying that communism is a viable state form. I don’t think it is. It relies too much on the good in man. You’re right that such a state would, very likely devellop into something else.
But that something else then couldn’t be called communism anymore. There has never been a true communist state.
Therein lies a serious answer. Any time power is concentrated in the hands of a few individuals, the state takes on the character of the individuals. Communism, fascism - tomato, tomAto. A “dictatorship of the proletariat” is just another dictatorship.
I’ve said it before, and I’ll keep saying it: “Communism is the only system which has been tried, has failed dozens of times, yet has ‘never’ been tried.” – Me
Agreed. For what the filmmakers claimed was a satire of that sort of state, it sure came off looking like propaganda in favor of the fascist/militaristic state.
Scary website, too, with music to match. www.starshiptroopers.com