this post was submitted on 13 Jun 2025
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Imagine if the Russian Revolution didn't turn out horrifically in the end. Imagine if the Soviet Union was an actual Marxist polity in something other than nomenclature.
God. History is so full of disappointments.
I should take up drinking.
Communism works on paper. But in reality it’s impossible for humans to not be greedy, put themselves above others and not take power. You think the guys running the government are gonna give themselves an equal share to what a lower class person is getting?? Pffft.
Humans are too flawed for it to work. I like socialism but Socialism has to be snuck in there, cause even saying it’s socialism freaks out Americans
There's... a lot to unpack here. But the end goal of communism is that there isn't a hierarchical government of professional bureaucrats in the final stage of communist society.
Sure, but what the other poster is saying is that getting there is nearly impossible because a significant number of people are always going to manipulate things so that they end up with authority. The people who go on to become psychopathic CEOS aren't simply going to stop being born. The people who innately seek "more" aren't going to stop being born either.
So you need a solid plan to deal with those kinds of people because they aren't going to stop existing.
You can, and groups regularly do, get there, in mostly stable communities.
It requires an active citizenry, but it is very much possible. The question is whether it is desirable, and whether it is competitive with other forms of communities. And I raise this question as someone who regards himself as communist and anarchist-sympathetic, but still skeptical of the desirability of the end-state.
In any case, anarchism and communism are not as utopian as they're being presented here. There's a considerable amount of writing on libertarian socialist dynamics and conflict resolution, including numerous real-world examples. The issue isn't as simple as "It's not possible" or "No one has thought of a solution yet", but questions of relative efficacy, development material conditions, the circumstances for stability, etc etc etc.
Eh, small communes are a very different thing. First, they are much smaller than a country. And the most important part: they're voluntary and pretty much consist of people who want to be there.
Unlike a country where millions of people want different things. So unless you want to go tribes again, it simply can't ever work.
Check historically anarchist regions during the height of non-ML leftism in the first half of the 20th century AD, like Ukraine and Anarchist Catalonia.
It's not that they are born psychopaths. You're not born a psychopath, you become one because of abuse during your formative years (aka childhood).