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#Post#: 10601--------------------------------------------------
How can Communism be explained to a ten year old?
By: Sudeep Date: December 28, 2018, 8:16 am
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I just came across this answer and got horrified as I read the
story especially this: [quote]Communism is a concept that looks
very attractive at the beginning until it eats you off
completely. Once you are gullible enough to let that idea enter
your door, you will ruin everything you cherish.[quote/]
HTML https://qr.ae/TUtLdY
Any thoughts? Anything interesting you want to mention? We are
missing a Chinese here on this forum ;D
#Post#: 10613--------------------------------------------------
Re: How can Communism be explained to a ten year old?
By: NealC Date: December 28, 2018, 2:32 pm
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Sounds about right
#Post#: 10622--------------------------------------------------
Re: How can Communism be explained to a ten year old?
By: Susan Date: December 28, 2018, 9:25 pm
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You know growing up during the Cold War I got so tired of
hearing about Communism that sometimes I did not take it too
seriously lately. That is until I started taking lessons from
teachers in Venezuela. Venezuela was supposed to be the modern
experiment of socialism in South America and turned into a great
nightmare. My teachers in Venezuela are like the child in the
example-- they feel that communism is very EVIL based on their
own experiences. Many of the populist Chavista´s bought into
the idea that Venezuela was wealthy from oil and all that wealth
would be shared. Instead, they have a government very much like
the Uncle with floor to himself while the country has
deteriorated incredibly rapidly.
#Post#: 10627--------------------------------------------------
Re: How can Communism be explained to a ten year old?
By: SHL Date: December 28, 2018, 11:45 pm
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[quote author=Susan link=topic=717.msg10622#msg10622
date=1546053936]
You know growing up during the Cold War I got so tired of
hearing about Communism that sometimes I did not take it too
seriously lately. That is until I started taking lessons from
teachers in Venezuela. Venezuela was supposed to be the modern
experiment of socialism in South America and turned into a great
nightmare. My teachers in Venezuela are like the child in the
example-- they feel that communism is very EVIL based on their
own experiences. Many of the populist Chavista´s bought into
the idea that Venezuela was wealthy from oil and all that wealth
would be shared. Instead, they have a government very much like
the Uncle with floor to himself while the country has
deteriorated incredibly rapidly.
[/quote]
I got tired of hearing about how great the US was during the
Cold War era and how lucky we supposedly were (what a joke). I`m
not trying to defend the situation down in Venezuela. The place
just went South I`d say and I do feel sorry for the people. Your
observations were very good, I will say. People looked at the
oil wealth of the country and thought if run correctly, everyone
would benefit. And, it all turned sour.
But look at say, Nigeria. They´ve got oil wealth and that place
is capitalist and a capitalist disaster zone, with all their
email scams and craziness. So, I could easily just grab a nice
capitalist country like that, and say „what a mess. All due to
capitalism.“ But, that would lack honesty and integrity wouldn`t
it? Same goes for Haiti. Can you imagine that place? Last I
heard they were a lot worse off in every way than Cuba, and no
one is blaming the fact that theirs is a capitalist country on
their capitalism. Capitalism flopped there too I guess.
You know, I could just go right around the globe to one
capitalist country after another and say „yep, another flop
there“ and I doubt that would prove much about capitalism. So,
why does everyone do this about socialist countries?
#Post#: 10642--------------------------------------------------
Re: How can Communism be explained to a ten year old?
By: Kseniia Date: December 29, 2018, 5:07 pm
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No, I don't think it's a good answer really. I mean, if a
ten-year-old asked me what "Liberté, Égalité, Fraternité" meant,
I wouldn't just say that these were principles that led to the
Reign of Terror. So, if we are to consider communism as an
ideology (which, I believe, is what the question implies), then
I don't think that the principle "from each according to their
abilities, to each according to their needs" is particularly
evil. The problem is, communism is unachievable, and thus it
leaves room (or, rather, ROOM) for deficit (you can't just ban
scarcity) and totalitarianism – which is indeed evil, no matter
if it is a right-wing or a left-wing dictatorship. But so-called
communist states usually do not (or did not) even call
themselves communist (that's why it was the USSR, not the USCR):
communism always was "the beautiful future ahead of us" that
could be seen only in some Soviet utopias. So I find it a bit
strange that in some Western countries the USSR is considered a
truly communist state... no one claimed that in this part of the
world, as far as I know.
But anyway, even if we assume that the question was actually
"What are socialist revolutions all about?", it still doesn't
quite add up. As far as I understand, the author based his story
mostly on the October Revolution in Russia and the history of
the USSR (well, he mentions "Animal Farm" and "Doctor Zhivago"
so I suppose that he knows something about this). Still, it
reads as if there was a foreign invasion or something – but all
these poor people that "occupied" the metaphorical house had
always lived in that house really, that's the tragedy of the
situation. And working 14 hours a day actually had become a sad
norm long before the revolution, both for the peasants [not sure
about this word, my dictionary says that it's a derogatory term
(really?), but I don't think I can really say "farmers" because
serfdom was abolished only in 1861 and the peasants still had to
pay most of their money to their former owners] and the working
class. You may not agree with me of course but I believe there
was real exploitation – for example, in 1915 the Council of
Ministers of the Russian Empire "finally heeded Russian
manufacturers' appeals" and "allowed" children of 12-15 years
old to officially work in underground soft rock mining (of
course, children's salaries were considerably smaller, that was
the whole point). The First World War – let's not forget that
forced recruitment was a norm back then, too – didn't make
things better. So, Russia in the beginning of the 20th century
hardly was a paradise that all those ill-intentioned poor people
just "invaded" to turn it into hell.
And yes, I don't think that "Animal Farm" condemns
socialist/communist ideals, it's mostly about the atrocities of
dictatorships, cults of personality and repressions. So, against
Stalinism - definitely. Against socialism? I wouldn't say that.
But it's only my opinion of course. Maybe I haven't read
Orwell's biography, publications and essays attentively enough?
#Post#: 10644--------------------------------------------------
Re: How can Communism be explained to a ten year old?
By: SHL Date: December 29, 2018, 5:48 pm
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Ksneiia,
Yes, those were very excellent points you made.
I also heard that Russia, before the Russian Revolution, was
essentially an agrarian society, mostly made up of poor peasants
(and no that`s not a derogatory word). Like you said, there was
no invasion by outsiders who turned the country into a USSR.
And yes, the USSR never called itself a „communist“ country
either. That´s one reason I dislike the word. That´s a
propaganda word used by opponents of socialist ideals to just
say, „this is evil.“ And the words socialism and communism just
became virtually synonymous in the 1950s in America, so no one
even thought to distinguish the two. That´s why in the 1950s and
60s in the US everyone opposed „socialized medicine“ because
they thought of it as a form of communism from the USSR.
Ironically, the US has had forms of government run socialized
medical schemes for SOME members of its society for 80 or more
years. People age 65 and older get it in the form of Medicare.
All people who have ever served in the military, and I suppose
got an honorable discharge, get it (retired military hospital
privileges, VA hospital privileges) and the indigent get it in
the form of the Medicaid program.
So, the US has been in the heathcare industry for a long time
but won`t admit it, just applying it to select groups of people
but not everyone. They won`t arrange to provide it to everyone
to appease the rich.
Good post.
#Post#: 10651--------------------------------------------------
Re: How can Communism be explained to a ten year old?
By: NealC Date: December 30, 2018, 1:35 am
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Orwell described himself as a Democratic Socialist, and Animal
Farm was written as a critique of totalitarianism, specifically
Stalinism and what the Russian Revolution had evolved into. He
wrote it as an insider, someone who believed in the ideas behind
socialist revolution who felt that it had been hijacked after
the end of the Russian Civil War. I don't know enough about the
difference between Lenin/Stalin and Trotsky, I remember
wondering if he felt the Trotsky character in the book would
have run the farm correctly.
He was decrying the direction of the Soviet state, but he still
believed in Socialist revolution and felt it could be positive.
I think in that belief he was terribly naive, and I agree with
you that true communism is unachievable. I would also say that
the end of what I would call socialist states is always tyranny,
because they usually begin with force and only in tyranny can
its goals be met. In the future that tyranny might be masked as
good intentions, political correctness or the greater good but
it will be tyranny none the less.
In the end Animal Farm is a tough book to follow, it is often
nearly history, sometimes allegory, sometimes just symbolic.
When I read it I thought the second half didn't match the tone
of the first. It might merit a re-reading. I know a lot of my
friends were reading it again after the 2016 elections :-)
Steve I think one of the problems you are enumerating is I have
never really heard a good definition of the differences between
Socialism and Communism. I remember arguing with my high school
teacher that the textbook "3 economic systems" were entirely
unsatisfactory. I didn't do very well on that test, that is for
sure. I don't know that the definitions we have really work at
all. We also don't have pure economic systems anywhere now and
it seems to me the political side needs to be part of the
definition. Conservatives in the US love to point to Europe and
say 'socialist', but that doesn't really work. Now kseniia has
injected something new, that to the Soviets Communism was a
future utopia they were working towards. That is a new one on
me, I have to think about that.
#Post#: 10652--------------------------------------------------
Re: How can Communism be explained to a ten year old?
By: SHL Date: December 30, 2018, 1:45 am
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Well, that was a good point she made. I just think socialism
means the workers own the means of production and benefit from
the fruits of their own labor. No one wants totalitarianism.
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