Communism: The Promise and the Reality
This a PBS documentary which looks into how Communism started with Vladimir Lenin's Bolsheviks revolution. Also offers testimony of members of the Red Guard, party activists, students, and workers striving to build a modern industrial state.
Communism is a social structure and political ideology in which property is commonly controlled. Communism (written with a capital C) is a modern political movement that aims to overthrow capitalism via revolution to create a classless society where all goods are publicly owned. Karl Marx posited that communism would be the final stage in human society, which would be achieved through a proletarian revolution and only becoming possible after a socialist stage develops the productive forces, leading to a superabundance of goods and services.
"Pure communism" in the Marxian sense refers to a classless, stateless and oppression-free society where decisions on what to produce and what policies to pursue are made democratically, allowing every member of society to participate in the decision-making process in both the political and economic spheres of life.
In modern usage, communism is often used to refer to Bolshevism or Marxism-Leninism and the policies of the various communist states which had government ownership of all the means of production and centrally planned economies. Communist regimes have historically been authoritarian, repressive, and coercive governments concerned primarily with preserving their own power. Episodes included: 1. Red Flag, 2. Fallout, 3. Brave New World, 4. Great Leap Forward, 5. Guerrilla Wars, and 6. People Power.
Glossing-over the millions of poor peasants that Lenin Ruthlessly butchered seems a bit disingenuous to me. Lenin was a sadist and a madman. He promised poor people a better life. Then when he gained absolute power he began systematically murdering anyone who spoke against his party. He burned every church he could find and killed religious leaders all over the country. This film is pro communist propaganda. They trot out some ancient hardline communist party members and anti-capitalist socialists in an effort to make Marxism look like a good thing. Seeking to deceive a new generation? Communism is responsible for the deaths of hundreds of millions of people world-wide. Marx was a lunatic, Lenin was a sadist and communism is a failure.
Just the Facts: US Military Interventions
Envío team
The US population has a strong self-image of charity toward those "less fortunate," both at home and abroad. Many, as a result, cannot comprehend the common use in the Third World of the term imperialist to describe the United States, or the frequency with which the slogan "Yankee Go Home" is written on walls all over Latin America. Equally incomprehensible, it would appear, is the response of many Latin American nations to the current US military invasion of Panama. Their demands for non-intervention, for the recognition of sovereignty and self-determination, fall on the deaf ears of those in the United States proud of their government's role as "policeman" of the region—a self-appointed role consecrated in the Monroe Doctrine of 1922 and carried out unilaterally ever since.
We list below the nearly 100 US military interventions in and occupations of Latin American countries since 1798. The list does not include US-sponsored military coups such as in Guatemala in 1954; destabilization efforts such as those the US implemented in Chile in 1970-73; or US-financed wars by local allies such as that fought in Nicaragua for the past eight years.
Mexico: 1806, 1814-25, 1836, 1842, 1844, 1846-48, 1859, 1866, 1870, 1873, 1876, 1913, 1914-17, 1918-19.
Cuba: 1814-25, 1822, 1823, 1824, 1825, 1898-99, 1906-09, 1912, 1917-33, 1933, 1956-58, 1961, 1962.
Dominican Republic: 1798-1800, 1814-1825, 1903, 1904, 1914, 1916-24, 1961, 1964, 1965.
Haiti: 1888, 1891, 1914, 1915-34, 1957.
Puerto Rico: 1814-25, 1898-99.
Jamaica, Antigua, Trinidad, Bermuda, St. Lucia, Bahamas: 1940
Grenada: 1983.
Guatemala: 1920, 1962
Honduras: 1903, 1907, 1911, 1912, 1919, 1924, 1925.
Nicaragua: 1853, 1854, 1857, 1894, 1896, 1898, 1899, 1910, 1912-25, 1926-33.
Costa Rica: 1921
Panama: 1856, 1865, 1885, 1903-14, 1918-20, 1921, 1925, 1959, 1964, 1989
Colombia: 1860, 1868, 1873, 1895, 1901, 1902.
Brazil: 1894
Peru: 1835-36.
Paraguay: 1859
Chile: 1891
Uruguay: 1855, 1858, 1868
Argentina: 1831-32, 1833, 1852-53, 1890.
greed will never let it work
Anti-communist propaganda. So blatantly wrong from the historical point of view, that it borders the unwatchable.
communism is a disease. democracy is no better. it is more of the attempt to run the machinery of civilization by the mob
Looks like this doco has a low rating, because of the communists not liking the truth.
Human nature dictates that communism will never work.
Communism is based on force, and theft.
Summary: Meet the new boss, same as the old boss.
Let's get down to the brass tacks and remove Marx's and his successors labels and ideology and see what a "communist" state actual is or perhaps resembles: USSR and China were/are respectively empires. A central nation ruling other states/ethnicities over vast territories is an empire. No two ways about it! It can be argued they can be categorized as theocratic empires because the ruling state imposes a dogma over its "assimilated" lands. Questioning the sacrosanct message carries huge penalties. Smaller states (Cuba, Vietnam, etc.) are client kingdoms or vassals or what have you.
A rose by any other name, ladies and gentlemen. I would argue that revolutionaries Lenin, Mao, and their inner circles used Marx's body of work (silly shit at best) to trick their respective motherlands peasant population into trading one type of despotism for another. It is undeniable that Tsar and Emperor were exchanged for Premier and Chairman respectively.
Quite the ruse.
In fact that, quite simply, is precisely what this country - not to mention many, many others! - should do right away.
If greed were made a capital offence and evident displays of greed were legally punishable in a court of law, the result would make an infinitely better and far more equable society - which, as far as I can see, would make everyone's lives - except the demonstrably greedy, of course - so very much better. Indeed, downright civilised all round. How "COOL" is that...???
Which, of course, means that Capitalism is the root of all evil. Because it inevitably invites greed as the overall controlling element and therefore always LEADS to war...!
delia ruhe is absolutely right. And Capitalists are absolutely wrong. Why...?
Because they are ALWAYS the ones on the lookout for ways to amass more and more money - solely for themselves...!
After a while you get tired of blaming soviet communism on Marx. Marx definitely did not figure into his theory an attempt to outspend the US military. Indeed, nowhere in the Marxian model will you even find a standing army.
It also pays to remember that Lenin was no Marxist. Marx didn't envision a vanguard that would do all the governing while the people would do all the labour -- a sure recipe for oppression of the masses.
Some very useful Marxist principles can be woven into a steady-state capitalism, but the point-one-percent would never permit an economic system without the growth that leads to excesses of wealth for the rich and environmental destruction for the rest of us.
Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov...Lenin was a pseudonym to help him escape capture and certain death, unfortunately, his pseudonym didn't help, c. 1896/97 he was arrested, imprisoned, and sent into exile to Siberia.
Who was the director?
The Russian people continue to respect Lenin and the Soviet state.
Their judgement should count for something.
And Christianity and Islam cost a lot of sacrifices, too.
Deterioration of ancient mummies may be caused by climate change
Communism: the monopoly of everything by the biggest and most powerful evil corporation of them all.
five minutes on the legendary cuban revolution? nothing on yugoslavia? and not the most unbiased documentary I have ever seen...
so you are saying that the biggest capitalist nation in the world has not killed one singel person in the name of liberty?Or that theres no such thing as capitalist nations with poor and starving people?
wow....are you serious??
P.S as far as know dictatorship and communism are two different things....
so you are saying that the biggest capitalist nation in the world has not killed one singel person in the name of liberty? or capitalist nations with starving people?? wow....you are seriuos??
as far as know dictatorship and communism are two different things....
It is horrific what these communist regimes did, the genocide and denial of basic civil liberties. You have to remember though that there are many communists who want total economic equality within a democratic system, who are totally disgusted by the USSR and who view that supposed form of "communism" as totally alien. All dictatorships and totalitarian states are in my mind fascist, whatever ideological claims they make themsleves.
It is a mistake to view communism as monolithic and to say the ideology is responsible for these crimes and so communists of whatever stripe are somehow complicit. Supporters of capitalism are no more responsible for the many millions who have died under capitalist systems, during the pursuit of profit (largely under European Imperialism), than are communists for the Great Leap Forward. FYI not a communist.
If only communism didn't have to own up to its track record and live by its results... but it does. A tough fact for the privileged adolescents who made all these worthless comments and whose power will never be more than theoretical.
I love the people who talk about Marx, but never read him. I love the people who talk about Communism, but cant define it correctly.I love the people who talk about communism as if it was a super welfare state. I love the people who talk about Lenin, as if Bolshevism wasn't a complete failure and a divergence from communist analysis. I love the people who talk about the Soviet Union, but cant give respectable critique that isn't a false regurgitation of what their parents told them. I love the people who talk about the success of capitalism, even though it has been the most destructive and murderous economic system that has ever existed.
You will find all these people on this thread. Enjoy the facepalm.
I loved the remark at the 2:20 time mark, "the fruits of their labor will be hospitals, housing, and schools." In America, the left has controlled education for years. Government dispensing money to schools, with socialist strings attached, and the Federal government has taken over student loans. Housing is also controlled by the federal government through regulations, the Federal Reserve, Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae under the guise of providing "Affordible Housing" for the poor. Healthcare was nationalized through Obamacare and its just a time before all healthcare workers become De facto government employees .