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Communism in theory vs in practice
(lemmy.ml)
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this post was submitted on 15 Mar 2025
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I wonder if anyone ever said "Democracy would never work, just look at what happened to Athens".
Socialism and communism are relatively new ideas. While I don't believe communism is an effective form of government, it's still kind of silly to write it off so quickly.
Well the ideal end result depends on the person, doesn't it?
I'm sure Karl Marx and Stalin had very different ideas of what the ideal end result of communism would be.
From my understanding; Marx envisioned a worker's utopia, while Stalin instead used communism to garner as much power for himself as possible.
Neither is accurate. Stalin tried to resign several times, in fact, but was rejected, and Marx wasn't a Utopian, but in favor of Scientific Socialism. Now, that doesn't mean Stalin was a saint or that Marx didn't have a beautiful vision for the future, but it does mean you should read up a bit more before making judgement calls. I have an introductory reading list for Marxism-Leninism you can check out for that, if you're interested.
Stalin was a power freak. Only reason he "tried to resign" is because Lenin released a statement criticizing him before he died. It's kind of like saying Matt Gaetz tried to resign in good faith.
That's only one of his attempts at resignation. If anything, it seems like he hated his position, wanting to just retire and do small party work without the intense stress that came with his position. He even advocated eliminating it entirely, as he believed there was no need for his 2 positions given the collective nature of Soviet leadership.
That doesn't mean he was some selfless great man, either. He had his fair share of errors, even the CPC considers him to have been 70% good, 30% bad. However, simply saying he only tried to resign because Lenin was angry at him for insulting his wife is wrong, he seemed to have hated his position for his whole career until his death.