Communism is one of modern history's pivitol experiments?

[Nostop it]

http://newsbusters.org/blogs/matthew...ivotal-experim

" the revolution that birthed one of modern history's pivotal experiments".

[Deleted]

I don't think it was an experiment, as much as it was a will of seizing power by a group of people who've used the comunist idiology to control the masses..... at least not in the former USSR.
Other Eastern European Countries might have fallen to some sort of experiment, but most of the time the political leaders were never in accordance, specially after 1965.

[Cybran]

Peter Dinklage is fucking awesome.

The author this "piece" is just pissed that not everyone is in line with the US smear campaign.

[Chelly]

Sure does look like an unbiased site.

[Cybran]

Also, if Americans are so hung up on Communism they should blame Germany and Kaiser Wilhelm II who financed Lenin and Trotsky's coup in exchange for armstice with Germany during the First World War.

[axhed]

MATT LAUER: We're gonna be talking about the New Russia, how a few people are doing very well and the fear that others are being left very far behind....Russia's rush to capitalism left the vast majority scrambling to survive. For many, life is worse than it was in Soviet times.

takes a lot of gumption to say that from within the united states.

[Krez]

Well, communism was the big new political ideology to come out of the 20th century. No one can doubt it was pivotal in shaping the current landscape of the world. Hell, it killed 94 million people that century, more than fascism and democracy combined. That number is staggeringly stupidly huge. Additionally, some of the worst famines last century occurred in communist countries as well, upping the death toll in communist regimes by another 47 million.

[Skroe]

Calling it an experiment is generally historically correct.

Political and economic systems as we know them are historically pretty new things. The United States was not founded as a "capitalist country". While trade for profit is thousands of years old, modern capitalism emerged in the late 18th, and really in the 19th century with industrialization. The United States, being a primarily agrargian society, is often described as market based proto-captialist. Trade for profit was taken for granted, and not based on an underlying economic theory like modern capitalism (or marxism, or whatever else).

Industralization led to many economic experiments. Communism was one of them, but was also a political system, and countries experimented with that too.

Europe in particular saw a series of political consolidations throughout the 19th century as a direct result of industrialization, politics and technology. Germany and Italy, most notabely, both unified, while Prussia broke up and the Ottoman Empire further declined.

World War I saw Republican France and Democratic Britain, war against the absolute monarchy of Germany. The absolute rule of the Russian Czars fell in the war to anti-monarchists, who were quickly displaced by Communists. Japan and China adopted European styles of government. And many people forget, the world dealt with about twenty years of wide-spread global anarchist movements that killed Presidents, Princes and Prime Ministers.

It could even be said that the world's flirtation with Fascism and the authoritarian militarist state on the model of Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan was another experiment.

Francis Fukuyama's End of History essay, one of the most important political essays of the last 25 years, pretty much captures this. While his ultimate conclusion is certainly open for debate given China, Russia and the rise of State Capitalism today, his general thesis was that after the founding of the United States - whose existence of republican government did change the world, followed by the immense changes to the map of Europe after the Napoleonic wars, industrialization and everything since, that the human race had experimented with a myriad of economic and political systems, until there were just two of global significance: Western Liberal Free Market Democracy and Marxist-Lenninist State-Centric Authoritarianism, and that by winning the cold war, Western Liberal Democracy, which had seen down every competitor since the demise of the First French Empire, was the final evolution form of government and economics of man.

Now, that essay and the book has been debated more than nearly any other since it was written because of the strength of the argument, the profound implications of it, and the uncertain present we live in and how it interacts with it.

But in context of the quote and referring to "Communism as one of history's pivitol experiments", it renders the saying entirely justifyable. It was an experiment - an experiment that completely and utterly failed and has been beaten by Western Liberal Free Market Democracy, that now is in contention against Eastern Authoritarian State Capitalism. Historians and people who read about it would recognize the phrase. It's a bit odd in the mass-media sense, but it is entirely appropriate to call it that. Like Fascism, like Communalism, like Anarchism, like absolute Monarchies, even like Communalism, and like Western Liberal Democracy... it was something that countires and cultures tried.

[Spectral]

Well, yes, it's certainly one of the most pivotal experiments that's been done. That statement has no value judgment in it, it's just a statement of fact. Of course, commenting on the result of that experiment would lead down a much more negative road in a hurry.

[THE Bigzoman]

Well, yes, it's certainly one of the most pivotal experiments that's been done. That statement has no value judgment in it, it's just a statement of fact. Of course, commenting on the result of that experiment would lead down a much more negative road in a hurry.

No it won't.

From a historical standpoint it has failed miserably.

The closest thing we have to a successful communism is China. And their income and wealth inequality is bigger then the U.S currently.

Communist my ass.

[Spectral]

No it won't.

I'm not sure what you're contradicting?

[THE Bigzoman]

I'm not sure what you're contradicting?

commenting on the result of that experiment would lead down a much more negative road in a hurry.

It won't lead down a negative road because the results of the experiment has been made very clear in history and current times. As a whole, communism in it's purest form has failed to be implemented quite a few times. And you know something is wrong when the most successful and self proclaimed communist country has pockets of unregulated capitalism and income inequality that is starting to pale the U.S in comparison.

[Deleted]

"Instructions not clear, couldn't find the meaning of the word 'pivotal', got dick caught in ceiling fan."

On a serious note, I think communism is inevatable in the future, but it won't be practiced by a goverment, but rather by a superintelligent AI. Scary and soothing at the same time.

[Spectral]

It won't lead down a negative road because the results of the experiment has been made very clear in history and current times. As a whole, communism in it's purest form has failed to be implemented quite a few times. And you know something is wrong when the most successful and self proclaimed communist country has pockets of unregulated capitalism and income inequality that is starting to pale the U.S in comparison.

I think you misunderstand me. When I say the discussion would head down a negative road, that's what I mean - communism is a terribly failed experiment.

[Rukh]

It's a valid label. Communism is ideology over pragmatism, a lot like libertarianism. Ideologies are a powerful thing. Fascism is another one.

[Dezerte]

Not much of an experiment of communism per se, but rather an experiment to implement communism failing.

[Felya]

Also, if Americans are so hung up on Communism they should blame Germany and Kaiser Wilhelm II who financed Lenin and Trotsky's coup in exchange for armstice with Germany during the First World War.

Which should highlight how communist Russia was, when by WW2 Lenin was assassinated and Trotsky was in exile to be assassinated shortly after it's start.

[Fiana]

Yes, it is a sort of experiment. It was pretty obvious that the world is not ready yet.
You really need a better economy for communism. If your country can't provide you with basics - like food and habitation, there can't be any communism. Free education and healthcare is good, but it's not enough.

We'll be there at some point. Just a bit... later.

[Fullmetal89]

Peter Dinklage is fucking awesome.

The author this "piece" is just pissed that not everyone is in line with the US smear campaign.

It's not a 'US smear campaign' it's backed up by facts. Communist Russia was more of a detriment to the country with it's restructuring than the previous Russian empire. Whenever and wherever Communism has been used as a form of government it has caused the largest genocides in it's respective countries. Look at China, Soviet Russia, Cambodia, North Korea, or Cuba as great examples of just how 'wonderful' communism has been for those countries. This isn't the first time NBC has glorified Communism and wont be the last, I never take anything that comes out of that news station seriously. So I'm not surprised this happened at all, and Peter Dinklage is an actor who is payed to say things not payed to think.

[Gheld]

It's not a 'US smear campaign' it's backed up by facts. Communist Russia was more of a detriment to the country with it's restructuring than the previous Russian empire. Whenever and wherever Communism has been used as a form of government it has caused the largest genocides in it's respective countries. Look at China, Soviet Russia, Cambodia, North Korea, or Cuba as great examples of just how 'wonderful' communism has been for those countries. This isn't the first time NBC has glorified Communism and wont be the last, I never take anything that comes out of that news station seriously. So I'm not surprised this happened at all, and Peter Dinklage is an actor who is payed to say things not payed to think.

And while we sit in our comfortable chairs, in our luxurious homes, sip our coffee, and debate the evils of communism, we overlook the fact that many of our corporate masters of freedumb have exploited millions of third world labourers to bring us this coffee. And the fact that A. A lot of the money to fund warlords in the third world comes from the purchase of conflict minerals by first world corporations, and B. A lot of the weapons they use are sold to them by other first world "entrepreneurs".

So capitalism hasn't exactly done the world right either. We're just too fat and happy to get off of our chairs and protest what our power brokers are doing. But rest assured, they are directly responsible for the deaths and suffering of millions.

EDIT: I guess you could say the main difference is that Hitler and Stalin weren't patient enough to establish a foolproof system of moral acrobatics before committing their atrocities.