Vladimir Ilyich Lenin

@SW-User He was great.
Doubt he was violent himself but he moved the masses of people who finally had enough of tsarist regime. You side with feudalist monarchy?

@Gloomy [quote]He was great[/quote]

and you're insane 😐

I don't like the tsars either. However the bolsheviks were still horrible people who committed acts of violence as a means to gain power and suppress any opposition...do you really support that? Lenin's policies led to mass starvation (before Stalin) and he had no empathy or compassion for anyone. It's not possible for someone with so many deficits to be "great", but I'll say it again...you can't be sane

@SW-User You should read his writings and he cannot be blamed for the world war Russia was part of before since his plan was to drop out as soon as possible and there was a civil war against the monarchists that ended the year before he unfortunately passed.
These situations made it not only difficult but impossible to form a democracy and to establish infrastructure to get people out of poverty under his rule.

@Gloomy they're absurd lol. Also I don't like ideologies in the political or economic sphere and think politics should move away from that.

btw I wasn't talking about the war 😆 I know Lenin ended Russia's involvement in that. He still knowingly caused lots of people to die though...kind of problematic, right? He only knew ideology and only wanted power, and that's not a person I could ever support or identify with.

[quote]These situations made it not only difficult but impossible to form a democracy and to establish infrastructure to get people out of poverty under his rule.[/quote]

He was antidemocratic

@SW-User [quote]Also I don't like ideologies in the political or economic sphere and think politics should move away from that.[/quote]

You cannot seperate politics from ideology because even those that claim to be free of it have one.

Your mistepresentation is sad and you are unable to take into account historic events and the fact that every new society in history was birthed in blood.

[quote]He was antidemocratic[/quote]

Anti bourgeois-democracy

@Gloomy [quote]You cannot seperate politics from ideology because even those that claim to be free of it have one.[/quote]

no lol. You can be someone who votes for a multitude of political parties during your lifetime, precisely because you have no ideology and want to be objective every time you vote. If you see yourself as an individual and see all the world's problems as complex and attributable to many factors, then you should be able to avoid ideology while maintaining an interest in politics. Political ideology corrupts people and makes them lose their capacity to think critically AND be empathetic...how and why is that desirable?

[quote]Your mistepresentation is sad and you are unable to take into account historic events and the fact that every new society in history [b]was birthed in blood[/b][/quote].

When it suits you lol.

We know communism is inherently flawed and not worthwhile in theory or in practice. Haven't you seen the results of it? Good societies don't follow mass starvation and widespread poverty.

[quote]Anti bourgeois-democracy[/quote]

Omg 🙄

@SW-User [quote]You can be someone who votes for a multitude of political parties during your lifetime, precisely because you have no ideology and want to be objective every time you vote.[/quote]

An ideology is your set of values, those who vote like this just don't have a political home they can get behind a 100% and will then vote based on certain stances a party holds that align with their values.

[quote]Haven't you seen the results of it?[/quote]

Sankara in Burkina Faso or Salvador Allende in Chile were promising and there were many good aspects of the Soviet Union.

@Gloomy in that case, Lenin didn't have great values...did he?

I asked if you'd seen the results of communism, not whether you think there were any promising communist parties or governments. Some aspects of the Soviet Union weren't horrible but most of it was. Since its collapse poverty has decreased and there has emerged some successful and democratic governments. Education aside, what do you think was good about it?

@SW-User [quote]I asked if you'd seen the results of communism[/quote]

The good and the bad same as with Capitalism only that I believe the future lies in socialist societies.

[quote]Education aside, what do you think was good about it?[/quote]

Access to "free" healthcare, guranteed employment for many citizens, the governments emphasis on collectivism and communal living leading to a strong sense of community and social cohesion. Central city planning solving the housing crisis and aiming to create communal living spaces, it at least abolished certain class hierarchies,smaller salary gaps between workers and managers, womens rights were better at the time than in the west, the government heavily invested in science, education and culture, ....

@Gloomy no...you really don't understand what the Soviet Union was like. People were compelled by the state to conform to very extreme standards. You couldn't be who you wanted to, and you couldn't own or keep what you were entitled to have. Capitalism isn't perfect but it allows for aspiration and liberty that is decided by the individual, not by the state. I'm presuming you are likely anti-religion, but not recognizing the right for other people to openly practice their religion means that you don't support the individual and their liberty. Education is useless if it's centered soley around government agenda...there is no point in more people being "educated" if they're only allowed to conform to a certain way of being.

btw Russia still does have free healthcare, as do most former Soviet countries.

@SW-User Of course I acknowledge that the Soviet Union was way too authoritarian, I mentioned the good parts that are supposed to stay.
Capitalism is sold as the system that allows individualism but in reality it alienates us and sells us corporate ladders, ownership and consumption as expressions of our individuality.

I'm anti organized religion meaning that personal and small communal organisation of faith should be possible without the state favoring one specific religion over others and power monopolies of religious organisations like the one of the Catholic Church should be destroyed.
People need to restrict themselves in certain areas, especially when it comes to markets and the economy but that doesn't necessiate the abolition of individualism and the implementation of authoritarianism that attacks individual liberties.

@Gloomy lol "good parts" 😂 that *was* the Soviet Union and it was mostly terrible. You may as well say that Nazism is worthwhile because it had some good parts, like Hitler improving the German economy. It's a trash argument and it doesn't work. Moreover, I already told you that education doesn't mean shit if you're only allowed to behave in a certain way...education should be about freeing people, not constraining them. What's the point in being able to read if you can only read from one book?

[quote]Capitalism is sold as the system that allows individualism but in reality it alienates us and sells us corporate ladders, ownership and consumption as expressions of our individuality[/quote]

Smh, capitalism is what keeps you alive.

@SW-User [quote]capitalism is what keeps you alive[/quote] 😂😂😂😂

@SW-User [quote]Moreover, I already told you that education doesn't mean shit if you're only allowed to behave in a certain way[/quote]

You do love to only bring up the education argument you yourself brought up first and seeing what is happening in the US right now censorship happens under any authoritatian government which I am not in favor of.
Also education should be for personal growth and to progress societie(s) and not solely for profit reasons.

@Gloomy you do realize that most businesses are capitalist? Or do you just not buy anything? Even the most basic necessities are the result of capitalism

@Gloomy I brought it up because I knew you would 😏 it's always the first thing that communists mention when they're trying to defend the Soviet Union

@SW-User
You did the meme 😂

@SW-User I mentioned other things as well 😌

@SW-User No production in itself is not capitalism 😂🤦‍♀️

@Gloomy and I told you that Russia still has free healthcare. The same applies to access to jobs (this has improved - they can actually make money!) and education. Now people in Russia and other post Soviet countries can pursue an education and hold the political and religious views of their choice. As for capitalism, it is simply defined as a system in which people's primary goal is to operate a business while making a profit. When people start and run the businesses you benefit from, they want to make money...that necessarily entails profit which they keep for their own purposes, which is capitalism. When people buy a house, they are looking to own a property and save more money in the long-term because instead of paying for rent they are investing in their future and pursuing the goal of owning something that can permanently be theirs to do with as they wish...this is also capitalism 😆🙄 but if you want to be a lazy communist for your whole life, you go ahead lol