That’s a hidden No True Scotsman fallacy. The primary superpowers which have historically claimed to be communist were or are authoritarian. Does that mean that they weren’t communist from a purely Marxist perspective? Perhaps, but if the people actually doing the supposed communist revolutions are consistently founding authoritarian states, then it doesn’t matter what you say communism is, or even what Marx said communism is. You should be decrying that those states are misrepresenting what communism is supposed to be. Call them out specifically for not being communist. Don’t fall back on claiming that the person you’re talking to just doesn’t know what communism is. The fact is that saying “I’m a communist” means siding with the people most visible in the world who say “I’m a communist”, unless you specifically distance yourself from those others in some meaningful way, and those others are Soviet Russia and the PRC under the CPC, both totally authoritarian states throughout the majority of their existence.
By precisely the same logic, the USA isn’t truly capitalist, as there’s no free market! Federal regulations hinder a true capitalist utopia, and so the USA is just a republic trying to establish the conditions of true capitalism. That’s bullshit and you know it. Tell any card-carrying member of the Communist Party of China that they aren’t communist, and let me know how that goes for you.
You’re speaking about socialism. Communism can’t be authoritarian.
That’s a hidden No True Scotsman fallacy. The primary superpowers which have historically claimed to be communist were or are authoritarian. Does that mean that they weren’t communist from a purely Marxist perspective? Perhaps, but if the people actually doing the supposed communist revolutions are consistently founding authoritarian states, then it doesn’t matter what you say communism is, or even what Marx said communism is. You should be decrying that those states are misrepresenting what communism is supposed to be. Call them out specifically for not being communist. Don’t fall back on claiming that the person you’re talking to just doesn’t know what communism is. The fact is that saying “I’m a communist” means siding with the people most visible in the world who say “I’m a communist”, unless you specifically distance yourself from those others in some meaningful way, and those others are Soviet Russia and the PRC under the CPC, both totally authoritarian states throughout the majority of their existence.
No, they weren’t communist by their own claims. They were social dictatorship looking to bring about the conditions for communism.
By precisely the same logic, the USA isn’t truly capitalist, as there’s no free market! Federal regulations hinder a true capitalist utopia, and so the USA is just a republic trying to establish the conditions of true capitalism. That’s bullshit and you know it. Tell any card-carrying member of the Communist Party of China that they aren’t communist, and let me know how that goes for you.
They will tell you what I said.