Well... There was this thing called Soviet Union. They decided to try to speed up the transition to communism by using repression and violence. And ended up being a totalitarian state, a direct opposite of what a communist state is supposed to be like.

Of course you can argue that Soviet Union was not communist, it was just a state that had chosen to call itself communist for propaganda reasons... But still, Soviet Union is an example of a communist country that was unsuccessful as a communist project already by itself. Then came outsiders and helped make it even worse, but bad doesn't become good by some people wanting it to be even worse. Burma is another example. I'd say they hacked away their own leg before anyone else, such as CIA, had time to interfere in their business.

[–] nomoesyankho@lemmy.wtf 2 points 23 minutes ago* (last edited 22 minutes ago)

TheRe Was THiS THinG CallEd The SoviEt UnioN

The russians got sick of dying for the tsar during ww1. They revolted. Six months later, ww1 "ended" (between germans and british, that is) and everybody was redeployed to russia.

Of course a country that's being invaded is totalitarian, wtf do you expect?

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

[–] BrainInABox@lemmy.ml 1 points 11 minutes ago

What no theory does to an mf

[–] Cowbee@lemmy.ml 5 points 9 hours ago* (last edited 9 hours ago) (1 children)

The USSR didn't "do repression and violence to speed up Communism," they had a successful revolution and established Socialism. By all accounts it was quite successful overall, but we can learn from where they erred and adapt for the future.

The only ones who believe the Soviet Union wasn't Socialist are generally Western Trots or liberals/Anarchists who already don't want the form of society Marxists want, which is a government that publicly owns its large and key industries and gradually folds in the new firms that grow to that level until the entire economy is publicly owned.

[–] Tuuktuuk@sopuli.xyz 1 points 2 hours ago (2 children)

Have you never heard of bolševiks and menševiks? What you're explaining is what menševiks wanted, but what happened was what bolševiks aimed for.

And that was inhumane horror.

[–] BrainInABox@lemmy.ml 1 points 10 minutes ago

Least smug shitlib

[–] Cowbee@lemmy.ml 2 points 31 minutes ago

No, the Mensheviks had a poor understanding of Historical Materialism and didn't think the Peasantry could truly be allied to the Proletariat. What I am describing is what the Bolsheviks did. To a bette extent the PRC also fulfills this.