Why is no "Communist" country?

Great Debates
1

This is probably more of a GQ, but I can see it getting heated in a hurry (and it is about Communism), so here goes.

Why is it that not a single Communist country has had the word “Communist” in its name? It’s always “People’s Republic” or some variation. Even the birthplace communism was named the Union of Socialist Soviet Republics, which was no more socialist than America is monarchial.

You’d think that the places which were actively siezing private property for public use and suppressing religious worship wouldn’t be ashamed to admit to it. The whole point of Communism is creating the people’s republic, crushing the bourgeoise, etc.; why is it necessary to even bother with a “softer” term?

The only explanation I could think of is if there were numerous interpretations of Communism, or it couldn’t be assigned to an exact government structure. The same could be said for “republic”, however, and evey Communist state uses the word. “Communist Republic” would be perfectly usable, and a heckuva lot more honest than, say “Democratic Republic”, which is almost the exact opposite of what a Communist republic actually is.

The Soviets were not creating some kind brotherhood where everyone was encouraged to help out the less fortunate. Why even pretend otherwise?

2

In Soviet ideology, “communism” was the society towards which they were working – a classless and stateless utopia. “Socialism” was what they had at the time, a necessary transitional phase with the state owning and managing the means of production. They didn’t call the state communist, but they did call its ruling party the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. And other communist parties and states have followed that precedent.

3

IANA Marxist (although I’m trying :wink: …)
Communism is a term that describes the working classes (proletariat) taking control of the means of production, therefore eliminating the influence and necessity of the bourgeoise. It is not necessarily a political or national system. The Marx/Engels view was that it could be trans-national. For this reason alone, I offer the WAG that to name a country offically ‘Communist’ would be to contradict the Communist Manifesto.

4

Are you under the misapprehension that the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics was communist and not socialist? The U.S.S.R. was very much a socialist country that had no more reached the ideal of Marxist Communism than had China. (And since Communism was an economic philosophy that only swept up governance as a method to enact the economy, there was no reason to put the word “communist” in the name of the government of any country.)

5

This is a good example of the abuse of the language. All commununists called themeselves socialists. Just that many socialists since have dinstanced themselves from former communist regimes does not mean there is a difference. It is just a question of semantics for these religious fanatics.
The socialist religion is probably the most diffuse and split of them all. It the great strength of this religion.
For example, the vast majority of socialists wordwide supported the Chinese Communist Party, and its great leader, Mao. I know this, for I was alive during the what is called the ‘Cultural Revolution’, when millions of people in China were killed and tortured. Yet in the west most ‘socialists’ supported this to a fantastic degree. It was no use arguing with these socialists that a great evil was occuring in China. Completelty pointless.
Try arguing with these people now. Except for a very few, your efforts will be met with a blank stare at least.
All this typing is futile! Whyfore?
Here in blair’s cool brittannia, socialism is alive and strong. our great leader says it not aloud, but soft. He calls it ‘Fabian sociialism’, or sometimes(even worse) ‘Christian socialism’.
Creeping socialism is getting stronger here, day by day. The worship of power grows stronger, for it is a two-way process - those that worship power over others, and those that worship the power of the state over themselves. People who are not socialist are prey to this too!
When socialists say ‘we will engineer your souls’, why don’t we rise up and confound them? How come we do not weep openly at this profound contradiction?
I am sorry to say this, but we humans are incredibly evil, and the evolution of evil has reached great hights. The triumph of power all over the place is absolute.
I was going to preach much more about this, but tiredness and the overwhelming sense of futility says goodbye, farewell, goodnight.

6

Who said this, exactly? and what is the contradiction?

The socialist religion? And why is being diffuse and split a strength of any religion?

7

I’m trying to rack my brains for a definition of socialism that excludes the USSR… The only one I can come up with cheats: if you assume that Communism is “evil socialism” and socialism is “good socialism”…

:dubious:

8

Well, There’s glory for you!

Actually, there are three fairly standard definitions of communism:

  • a practice in which a (usually small) group contributes all of their earnings and property to a common pool from which each person may draw what he or she requires to live;
    (This occurs most frquently in small religious communities and has been pretty well demostrated to be unworkable in larger groups or where a group raises children.)
  • a philosophical economic theory expounded by Karl Marx that is based on a concept similar to that of the first definition that has never been put into practice in the real world;
  • a word used in casual conversation to identify all the various groups who took their ideals from Karl Marx (even though none of them ever actually implemented his theories).
    (This usage, while popular, is nearly useless for serious discussion of actual economic or governmental policies, since the practice has never occurred in the rel world. It is found among the rantings of Robert Welch or in the letters of that group of idiotic bishops in France during WWII who petitioned Pius XII to call a crusade against the “godless communists” in which the re-armed French Army would join Hitler’s forces attacking the US.S.R.)

.
Now, socialism is generally used to describe a rather large number of different (and often opposing) schemes to distribute wealth on a national or international basis. Referring to socialism as some vast monolithic religion that is being spread through proselytization and conversion is just silly. It is very possible to oppose all socialism on the principled grounds that all schemes to redistribute wealth are unjust. (And the arguments can be based either on philosophical opposition to the redistribution of wealth or on the practical grounds that all such schemes are open to abuse.)

However, socialism is only a general concept that has to be placed in perspective to be discussed rationally. It cannot be accurately described as always based in a desire for power. Certainly, many advocates of socialism want power–just as avocates of capitalism want power–and power is required to change systems that are less socialistic to be more socialistic. However, socialists have included such dreamers as the Victorian Utopian Socialists (such as William Morris) and people who viewed limited socialism as the proper counterbalance to the excesses of unrestrained capitalism in the late 19th century. Morris and a few of his friends actually believed that if people could simply be shown the better way of life available under socialism, then the existing government institution would simply dissolve. (Obviously, his was not a widespread belief and he was forced out of several socialist groups, but one cannot claim that he was not a “real” socialist simply for not desiring power.)

As to your little rant about the Chinese Cultural Revolution, you appear to be working from some narrow base of your own associations and extrapolating to “the majority of the socialists wordwide supported the Chinese Communist Party.” I strongly suspect that we would see some bait-and-switch usage if we actually attempted to discuss this point. When people who espoused socialist actions are shown to have opposed the Great Leap, they will be declared “not true socialists” and when the discussion moved on to the policies of Tony Blair, suddenly they will be dumped back into the “socialist” category from which you had earlier excluded them.

(It is quite true that a number of rather prominent socialists did support Mao regardless of the persecutions that occurred under him, just as a number of socialists in the previous generation supported Lenin and Stalin despite evidence of their injustices. Similarly, any number of “capitalists” supported the abuses in South Africa and the Philipines on the grounds that those governemnts were “fighting communism.” (There is that sloppy usage, again.) There are people among all political groups who are willing to ignore “their” sides’ abuses when castigating their opponents. However, simply making claims about some “vast majority” of socialists when you have failed to identify which of the myriad flavors of socialism you are discussing is simply poisoning the well (or tarrring with too broad a brush–whatever image you prefer).

Glory indeed.

9

[hijack]

Where’s this from? It’s ringing all kinds of bells but I can’t place it.

[/hijack]

10

Is there any particular reason why they would? Have any capitalist countries ever had ‘capatalist’ in their name? You’d think places which were encouraging people to enrich themselves and take advantage of those less fortunate than themselves wouldn’t be ashamed to admit it :wink:

11

It’s from Carroll’s Through the Looking-Glass. Near as I can remember, Humpty Dumpty calculates how many more “unbirthdays” you would have if you celebrated your “unbirthday” instead of your birthday. Then he says, “There’s glory for you!”

ALICE: “‘Glory?’ What does that mean?”

HUMPTY DUMPTY: “I mean, ‘A nice knock-down argument.’”

ALICE: “That’s not what ‘glory’ means?”

HUMPTY: “When I use a word, it means what I want it to mean, no more and no less.”

ALICE: “The question is whether we can make words mean so many different things.”

HUMPTY: “The question is which is to be master. That is all.”

Carroll was a philosopher-mathematician and this was, I think, his way of addressing the opposition of nominalism to the idea of universals.

12

Thanks, BG.

That was driving me crazy!

13

Here’s the actual passage – found it on Project Gutenberg (http://www.gutenberg.net/dirs/etext91/lglass19.txt):

14

No, I have a couple of friends who are quite content with calling themselves “Communists.” One of them lives in a communal situation, the other is a high school teacher who is Communist in philosophy only.

I am sort of a Socialist-lite. My first husband was a Socialist. It wasn’t our religion at all. It was simply our political philosophy. He was somewhat more active politically before we married, but not afterward.

That is the most bizarre statement. Mao was a monster. Revolutions were supposed to make things better for a country, not worse. He was a savage. Even my Communist friends were horrified.

Put down your broad brush.

15

I hope that a mod can repair that coding. What a disaster!

16

Now here’s something that has always confused me. What makes “socialist schemes to redistribute wealth” any more or less unjust than paying taxes that are used for the common good? I am against socialization because I feel that central economic control is inferior to a market economy. There are times, however, where the market may be more efficent however not everyones needs are satisfied (health care and education). There are also natural monopolies where competion is not practical (vable companies). Such conditions lend themselves to centralized control or at the very least regulation.

17

I’m pretty sure that you can find folks to oppose such taxation on the same grounds. I’m not prepared to argue their cases; I was only noting that the argument has been put forth. My point was that, among the wide variety of political views that are held among the world’s population, some may oppose socialism for its actual effects (real or imagined) and some may oppose it based on some “first principles” argument, but that making a claim that socialism needs to be opposed because it is some monolithic religion is pretty silly. Obviously, among all those viewpoints in the world, there are also people who can embrace socialism, either in its “pure” form (however that might be defined) or as various “socialistic” features that might be seen as corrective agents to unbridled capitalism.

18

The language used by the quondam Communist states derives from the meanings with which they invested “People’s”, “Democratic,” and “Republic” – Stalin was on record at meetings of the Big Three as saying that it meant “non-Fascist” rather than what we Americans and Brits would expect the terms to imply. “Managed democracies” with candidates chosen to support the national party and effectively no opposition are within the Communist definition of “democracy.” (I suppose I should say “Marxist-Leninist” rather than “Communist” here – not all people who consider themselves as supporting Communism supported this perspective.)

19

Given that Karl Marx was German and wrote The Communist Manifesto in England, I’d be tempted to rephrase this.

20

All right, all right, all right, clarification time…

As I understand it, the main distinctions of Communism are 1) Rule by a single party; elections are held, but they’re only to give a pretense of a “government for the people”, and 2) the goverment owns and has the right to distribute all property. And of course, there are all kinds of incidentals like suppression of religion and prison camps and commissars forcing random citizens to cross the street backwards on one foot and whatnot. A Socialist government ensures the basic needs of all (and generally passes the cost on to whoever can pay), but does not abolish all private property or all but one political party.

The Soviet Union was a Communist state. The tents of one-party rule and no private property completely controlled how the USSR operated, how its people lived, and what its relations with other countries was like. I seriously doubt that anyone with any sense ever tried to paint it as a “socialist utopia” (and I think that anyone who lived there could tell you that this was definitely not the case).

So given that the effects of Communism are so far-reacing and obvious, why bother with wimpy appellations like “democratic republic?” I mean, if you’re a real Communist, and you believe that someday the workingmen of all countries will topple the old order and unite the world etc., and you don’t have any qualms about working for a repressive system that’s not even a shadow of a “democratic republic” in order to accomplish this goal, why mince words?

Hopefully my question’s a bit clearer now…

P.S.: Oh yeah, I already know about the book by that overeducated Russian, the one full of stuff about inevitable revolution and the dictatorship of the proletariat and junk. I’m talking about the goverment system as it was actually implemented.