All actual communist societies work the same way, so it's clearly possible to generalize.

All "actual communist societies", have been run by marxist-leninists or regimes supporting derivations of it, which is a couple from dozens of ideologies within the umbrella. So, sure, you can generalize about those regimes. That still does not speak to any unified "communist mind". Those regimes have collectively murdered vast numbers of proponents of other communist ideologies.

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unmole 2 days ago | parent [-]

> All "actual communist societies", have been run marxist-leninists or regimes supporting derivations of it,

In other words, real communism has never been tried.

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ButlerianJihad 2 days ago | parent | next [-]

No true Scotsman would argue with you!

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balamatom 2 days ago | parent | prev | next [-]

So what if it hasn't?

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vidarh 2 days ago | parent | prev [-]

If you believe "real communism" can not be achieved by marxism-leninism, then that would be a conclusion. I intentionally did not make any claim like that, because that is wildly subjective and contentious. You're entirely free to think these regimes are "real communism" - I have no interest in that argument.

What, however, is not subjective, is that the stated ideology of all of these regimes is derived from ML, and that there is a vast number of communist ideologies outside of ML. You're free to consider those equally bad if you please. I've not made any argument about that either.

It is a fascinating picture of exactly what keybored argued that the immediate reaction of people is to drag out strawmen like this.

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devilbunny 2 days ago | parent [-]

> communist ideologies outside of ML

Color me intrigued. Any good books to recommend?

	▲	vidarh 2 days ago \| parent [-]
		Nothing springs to mind that gives a good overview without going to primary sources. It's been literal decades since I spent time reading up on a wide range of these ideologies. This Wikipedia list is reasonably comprehensive: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_communist_ideologies The main split is between "right-communists" and "left-communists" (hence Lenins "Left Wing Communism: An infantile disorder"; the Bolsheviks were considered "right"), where the "left" are those who rejected ML/Leninism on the basis of "democratic" centralism and the idea of a vanguard party. Most of the anti-ML ideologies like council communism, anarcho-communism, libertarian Marxism are in that category. Perhaps texts by Joseph Dejacques, Kropotkin, Rosa Luxembourg, Emma Goldman would give a reasonable introduction to those.