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Comment by RangerScience | Hacker News Reader

/Personally/, I’d attribute that more to authoritarianism than communism, but the two have been commingled since Lenin so it’s not necessarily an important difference.

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The reason why communism is always associated with authoritarianism is mainly the process by which it is introduced: it is impossible that all citizens agree that a state becomes communist so it has to be introduced by force. And once you get this power over the lives of all your citizens, you don't want to give it back (which also makes sense because they could overthrow communism).

The only societies where communism works without authoritarianism are communes like the Longo Maï where people come by choice, not by force.

> The reason why communism is always associated with authoritarianism is mainly the process by which it is introduced: it is impossible that all citizens agree that a state becomes communist

All new systems are introduced by force, even capitalism. Do you think that at one point in the past everybody in Britain decided that the state should be capitalist and so everyone, on their own accord, moved from communal land so it can be passed in to private hands?

As a counter-example, the fall of communism in Eastern bloc was (mostly) a very peaceful process. A notable exception was Romania where the ruler was particularly cruel but in several other countries the system changed without one shot being fired, even though surely there were quite a few proponents of the old regime.

The institution of whatever came after the fall of communism was done by force, just like the institution that came before it, for the reason you describe: it's impossible to get literally everyone in an entire country to agree on a government, so the government must be imposed by force.

The comment you are referring to wasn't referring to the difficulty in getting everyone to agree on a form of government, but on how it is impossible to create a large-scale communist economic system without imposing it. This is due to how is it necessary to confiscate property in order to redistribute it in a communist system, which naturally has its opponents, as those who have worked for property believe they have earned it. Almost all of the Soviet states transitioned to market economy democracies without any conflict at all, so your assertion for the need of force is completely wrong. The transition was natural as the people naturally preferred a market economy system, which had led to an underground market economy being created during the Soviet days, known as the second economy of the Soviet Union.

That is correct, and I was pointing out that it isn't specific to communism: any government or economic system will have at least 1 person who doesn't like it, but the system being created nonetheless requires imposing it by force, and maintaining it by force, which nearly every government does to this day.

> The comment you are referring to wasn't referring to the difficulty in getting everyone to agree on a form of government, but on how it is impossible to create a large-scale communist economic system without imposing it. This is due to how is it necessary to confiscate property in order to redistribute it in a communist system

And my original comment clearly shows that capitalism also had to be imposed for what once was communal needed to be confiscated in order to be redistributed.

> Almost all of the Soviet states transitioned to market economy democracies without any conflict at all

Indeed, a state capitalist society transitioned to market capitalism. Nothing needed to be taken from any one person but the state. Not really a new system, just new owners.

I'd argue that that is not a good counter example. There is a reason why those that implemented the system used in USSR called it state capitalism. So for the factory worker in that regard little did change. The factory just got a new owner. Don't get me wrong, a lot did change, but in this regard little did.

That's simply false, capitalism is the natural order, people looking out for their own interests and working with others only when both parties agree to. Communism is forced labor/partnership, and requires disappearing all those who don't want to be part of the system and/or using extreme force to get dissidents to comply. Capitalism simply lets those who don't want to participate pave their own way.

> people looking out for their own interests and working with others only when both parties agree to

Since we're already knee-deep in nitpicking terminology, this is describing the general philosophy of anarchism, not capitalism.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anarchism

What is false? That people were killed and run of their land so that it can be given to private ownership?

Also, what is natural in me owning a factory on the other side of the world when I never left the city I live in?

Isn't communism supposed to be achieved through authoritarianism, after which the state "withers away" [sic]?

AFAIK (“Seeing like a State”), that’s specific to the Leninist modality. I very well could be misinformed, but, the book mentions essentially a moment where democratic-socialism was co-opted by authoritarian communism (Leninism), so that’s what the world ended up with.

That's not even in Leninism, no. Read Lenin's "State & Revolution" and you will definitely come away with a different impression -- he speaks openly about the abolition of the authoritarian state and a radical democracy... just not a parliamentary one.

Though clearly what happened in the USSR in the 20s was something different from what he wrote. What you saw in Russia in that period was a response to an ongoing civil war, followed by the rise of Stalin.. who, yes, really did believe in brutal authoritarianism.

All these Stalinist states (and I would classify China this way too) will pay lip service to Leninism as a way to seek ideological legitimacy. But their "official" readings of Marx and Lenin are very... creative... shall we say.

But it's 1:30am and I should no be getting into this argument.

For sure, there is more nuance that happens here. Some of what the early Soviet government authorized during the Russian Civil War with the Whites was not all that different from what Lincoln authorized for the Union during the American civil war. So I give some leeway to Lenin on that. For sure, Lenin never intended Stalin to get power. After all, Lenin made Stalin party secretary general or something like that, which was supposed to be a joke position with no real authority or minimal amount of power. Pretty much after the Russian Civil War, Lenin was pretty much perpetually sick and pretty much couldn't see his interpretation to the end. So, I do think had Lenin lived, the USSR would have been much different than what we saw, however I don't know if it would been much better, a little better or worst. That would take engaging in too many hypothetical of history. But I think it is fair to say, we can't graft what the USSR became under Stalin as to what the USSR would have been if Lenin would have lived.

I personally subscribe to the Trotskyist analysis that the root cause of the rot that led to Stalinism was the isolation of the revolution in one country, and nothing Lenin could have personally have done would have made a difference once the German revolution failed. They were politically and economically isolated, and unable to effectively administer governance, and if it hadn't been Stalin's brutal form of dictatorship, the state would have either fallen apart or some other "Socialism In One Country" dogma + authoritarianism would have entered the fray.

Stalin rose through the ranks by being a seemingly "competent" administrator who restored the power of the old Tsarist bureaucracy to "get things done."

But in general, Lenin gets a bad rap for the awful things his successor did.

You'll note that Putin admires Stalin but loathes Lenin. Even bizarrely singling Lenin out for his positions on Ukraine and the national question etc in his crazy speech justifying their aggression on the eve of their invasion.

It's a horrible tragedy of history in which millions died and all of eastern Europe fell under a terrible dark iron curtain which took the name "communism" but the name is effectively irrelevant. What it really was was a broken down highly authoritarian single party state that used the badge of "socialism" to lend itself legitimacy while doing very awful things in the name of Russian nationalism, certain individuals, the Party, etc. etc. Kleptocratic clique under the guise of a revolutionary state.

As we can see in China today the actual economic political model doesn't even matter. They'll use the name "communism" even when what they're doing is absolutely savagely market driven, or something else, like the quasi-theocracy in North Korea.

What they labelled as socialism in the East bears almost no resemblance to what socialists in the West advocated. But the label of "communism" will forever be marred by what these people did.

EDIT: A good classic book on this topic is "Leninism under Lenin" by Marcel Liebmann (https://www.haymarketbooks.org/books/908-leninism-under-leni...) -- now, whether that old book can stand the test of time now that more historical records from that period are open, I don't know. I'd be curious to see a (non-ideologically motivated) Russian historian with access to records from the Revolution take it apart.

https://www.marxists.org/archive/mandel/1975/xx/liebman.html

Thanks for the book recommendation, I will definitely check it out! I personally enjoy reading Russian history, it is fascinating and highly complex. It is also just revealing on how much society ideologically focuses on certain sets of history. Like in Russia, focusing on Stalin as the ultimate baddie of Russia. While Stalin sure as hell wasn't a good guy. There isn't a whole unique to his form of brutal-ism compared to the Tsarists before the USSR. The KGB of the time were doing essentially the same things the Tsarist secret police were doing before them. Many of the Tsars were also extremely brutal. Russia really just had gotten a bad hand of leadership for most of the past 1,000 years.

I'd agree it's basically just a form of authoritarianism. Then again, different regimes have simply adapted communism to their own interpretation. You get North Korea with their Chuch'e, the Chinese call theirs "Socialism with Chinese Characteristics", you had Ba'athism in Iraq. But yeah, communism in its pure, traditional form these are not.

>communism in its pure, traditional form these are not.

Achieving communism necessarily entails authoritarianism because you need an authoritarian state to seize the property of existing landholders and business owners, and to prevent the creation/operation of new private businesses.

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