Lefty Party Day

[CID]

I may be wrong, but I'm pretty certain Fidel would
call you a "counter-revolutionary". And much worse.

Fidel is not only a communist, he's a dictator. His tactics may have been right for Cuba in the fifties as they struggled to remove the destructive influence of the US but it eventually turned the country into a third world cesspool with little hope for prosperity for the people.

Was it socialist policy that condemned Cuba or was it the absolute authoritarian rule?

Hitler definitely wasn’t a communist but like Fidel, his tendencies to dictatorship were his major failure in my opinion.

[Hedley]

Hitler definitely wasn’t a communist

No, but Stalin certainly was a communist, and IIRC
he was responsible for 20+ million deaths, which
objectively bypasses Hilter on the genocide scale.

[Widow]

Stalin wasn't a communist either. He was a Stalinist, inventor of Stalinism.

[JakeYYZ]

Those that don't agree, proceed to boxcar #7668977890-98-0 for trip to Karl Marx Treatment Center.

Bring warm gloves….and shovel.

[Hedley]

Nice try with the revisionism. From the first page of your own link:

The term "Stalinism" was coined by Lazar Kaganovich and was never used by Joseph Stalin who described himself as a Marxist-Leninist and a "pupil of Lenin" although he tolerated the use of the term by associates.[citation needed]

Like many other "-isms" it can be used as a pejorative term when referring to nation-states, political parties, or the ideological stance(s) of individuals, particularly "Anti-Revisionists". It is also used as a pejorative to describe politicians and political groups, Communist or non-Communist, who are perceived as particularly authoritarian or hard-line.

Stalin was the chief communist of the glorious communist Soviet Union, and murdered millions of people in his pursuit of the communist utopia.

Funny how lefties try to distance themselves from their odious compatriots.

Anyways, if you don't want to talk about communist genocide
in the former glorious Soviet Union, how about we talk about
how beneficial communism has been for the citizens of
North Korea?

[CID]

Funny how lefties try to distance themselves from their odious compatriots.

So people with left leaning tendencies shouldn't attempt to distance themselves from extremists? So does that make you a nazi Hedley?

[Widow]

Whether he coined the term or not, the term was coined after him because he was NOT a true communist. If anyone has an example of "pure" communism at work, I'd be surprised. You pretty much have to be an altruist to be a communist. Most people are selfish by instinct, and care more about themselves than others. Besides which, "Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Great men are almost always bad men.". Hence, although, yes, I think it is a lovely Utopian ideal, that's all it is - a political ideology. It can never work.

Dammit CID, we're agreeing again.

[Hedley]

Me, right wing? Surely you jest ... I find the right
wing extremists terrifying - their idea of sport is
to shoot doctors with scoped rifles on the weekend.

On the other had, I find left wingers are almost
always funny as hell. Like watching Monty Python.

[F,D and H]

The problem with the communist societies we see today and have seen in the past is that they are all based on the Bolsheviks method of forcing, possibly with violence, their system. As apposed to the communism that the Mensheviks proposed that was to be brought in democratically. Not saying that it "would" have worked, just saying that it "may" have worked.

All this being said, I would still vote Reform if they were around today.

[JakeYYZ]

Jeppesen, Castro didn't "give" Cubans education and health care. They were already ahead of the rest of the Caribbean basin in terms of both by the late 1950s. The unanswerable question is where they'd be were it not for half a century of Communist Party rule, given the 'head start' that they had when Castro took over. That is, unfortunately, unanswerable. But it doesn't incline me to credit Castro as much as some would like.

[corporate joe]

Jeppesen, Castro didn't "give" Cubans education and health care. They were already ahead of the rest of the Caribbean basin in terms of both by the late 1950s. The unanswerable question is where they'd be were it not for half a century of Communist Party rule, given the 'head start' that they had when Castro took over. That is, unfortunately, unanswerable. But it doesn't incline me to credit Castro as much as some would like.

Actually it's extremely easy to answer. Here's a hint: How about the strongest military/economy in the world, who happens to be your neighbor and that has a ton of influence on every other country surrounding you creates an embargo around you, isolates you, and does everything in it's mighty power to make sure you don't succeed. Then your "ally", who was on the other side of the world, collapses and abandons you, leaving you to fend for yourself against a hemisphere.

[Widow]

corporate joe, are you insinuating that Castro did well against what might be deemed insurmountable odds?

[corporate joe]

No. I am merely trying to show that you can't blame Cuba's "difficult" situation solely on Fidel Castro, much less Karl Marx.

[2R]

Karl marx did not exist !!!