this post was submitted on 24 Apr 2025
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In my mind, this is ironically why every time communism "has been tried", those countries have slipped into authotarianism that had little to no similarity with the ideal of communism. Because the reality is, that if you focus too much power on one position that decides how resources are distributed fairly, those positions attract those that care for achieving and holding power above all.
There are 2 big errors here. The first is the idea that Actually Existing Socialist states, the ones governed by Communist parties historically and presently, have nothing in common with the "ideal" of Communism. The second is the idea that Communism is an ideal. I bring this up because your perception is very common, especially in the West.
People not trained in Marxism-Leninism tend to see Communism as a perfect model to emulate, ie a "utopia," while Marx himself was strictly anti-utopian, instead firmly believing in taking a scientific approach to Socialism. This means that different levels of development and situations will have different structures of society, but all will generally hold the power in the working class through a proletarian government.
In reality, states like the USSR absolutely followed Marxist analysis when deciding what to do and when. This is abundantly clear when reading historical documents and rationale. This can be further obfuscated by western propaganda, like the idea that Socialism concentrated power into the hands of the few, when in all cases it has represented a democratization as compared to previous systems like Tsarism.
The combination of the "Red Scare" vision of all AES states being the default, combined with a thoroughly "liberal" vision of Marx as some Utopian as the default for understanding Marx in the west, leads to a very difficult time with growing Marxist movements.
As a side note, idealism doesn't refer to literal ideals, like goals and such. Idealism instead refers to philosophical idealism as opposed to materialism. The idealists believed that ideas come before matter, ie everyone exists in their own mind palace perception of the world. The materialists like Marx believe the opposite, that matter creates ideas. Social practice like labor creates social consciousness, this is why Marx believed the proletariat as accustomed to cooperative labor form a genuinely revolutionary class towards socialism, while other classes do not to the same extent.
Second side note, all states are authoritarian, all states are the means by which one class asserts its authority. It is good for states to be proletarian.
Where do I start if I want to achieve this level of knowledge on the subject. I want to further educate friends and family
Which subject, specifically? If you mean Marxism-Leninism, I made an introductory reading list, if you mean Idealism and Materialism, as well as Dialectical Materialism (the philosophical component of Marxism), I highly recommend Elementary Principles of Philosophy by Georges Politzer.
How do millions of deaths under Stalin factor into that?
You can be more specific, without specificity all I can say is that most westerners' view of excess mortality in the Soviet Union comes from the Black Book of Communism, notoriously debunked "historical" book that included the following as "deaths due to Communism:"
No Marxist asserts that there were no excess deaths in Socialist states, that would certainly be off-base. However, us Marxists do affirm that historical record overwhelmingly favors the notion that the real historical totals are heavily distorted quantitatively and qualitatively in western media and education.
If you want to be specific, we can go further into detail, if you'd like.
I just opened Wikipedia. There is a whole article about the excess mortality under Stalin: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Excess_mortality_in_the_Soviet_Union_under_Joseph_Stalin
Even the Wikipedia article opens up, affirming what I just said:
Even further, it attributes starvations in gulags occuring during World War II when the Nazis invaded Ukraine, the USSR's breadbasket, to the USSR rather than Nazi Germany. It also includes all executions as "excess deaths," presumably implying any execution is unjustified, even those of fascists and the members of the White Army that had committed crimes against humanity.
The article even says the 20 million number commonly reported is bogus, and the actual number of deliberate deaths is less than 5% of that, and among those deliberate deaths were legitimate executions of murderers, rapists, anti-semites, and war criminals.
This does mean that there were certainly excesses, but at the same time, you've gone straight to a non-scholarly source influenced heavily by the US government, who has been known to lie about the very subject, or try to obfuscate the real character of events.
The very next paragraph read as follows:
You can't blame all the deaths on Nazis.
I literally referenced that paragraph, and explained. The vast majority of gulag deaths, included in that 1.5-1.7 million estimate, were starvations during World War II. The executions? The large majority were, again, rapists, murderers, fascists, war criminals, and members of the White Army.
The total deliberate killings of innocents? Entirely left obscure. Any execution is marked as "excess," including the criminals I listed, starvations during World War II are "excess" rather than listed as deliberate murders from the Nazis.
I even said there were excess deaths, my point (that you're proving, no less) is that real facts are quantitatively and qualitatively obfuscated to push a narrative.
Would you mind telling me what point you think I'm making?
I just want to know if those excess deaths are part of the Marxist ideology or not. You say the USSR was a country following Marxist theory. At least 7 million people died either because they were killed by the state or died through negligence. Are all those deaths explained away by "The war caused their deaths" and "They deserved it anyways"? Were a significant number of them killed despite the USSR being marxist or because of it?
Dekulakization was the process of collectivizing agriculture. This process was frustrated by Kulaks, bourgeois plantation owners, killing crops and their farm animals, rather than handing them over to the red army, and even getting into skirmishes with the red army. This led to famine. The reasoning for collectivization was absolutely driven by Marxist analysis, so we can file this under "deaths that happened because the Soviets were trying to bring about Socialism," though the blame is absolutely on the Kulaks.
The 1930s famine was a tragedy, accelerated by drought, though the Ukrainian Communists hid how bad the famine was getting until it was too late. This can be considered partially state responsible, though obviously most of the blame is on the Ukrainian Communists for trying to hide how bad it was getting. It was more of a human error compounding a natural famine, hard to attribute it to Marxism or not.
Those that died during the purges? Yep, the fascists, White Army war criminals, rapists, anti-semites, and murderers made up the majority of those executions, and these people may have lived had the Tsar remained. There likely were innocents killed as a part of the chaos, though. All in all, definitely a consequence of the Socialist system defending itself from an onslaught of infiltrators.
Deportation? Not really driven by Marxism, and I don't know enough about that particular subject to speak on it.
The USSR as a whole was formed based on Marxist analysis, it was a largely publicly owned and centrally planned economy. Life expectancy doubled, literacy rates over tripled to 99.9%, healthcare, education, and childcare were free and high quality, and working hours were lowered gradually and vacation days were higher than in the US. Whether or not the USSR was following Marxism isn't in question, it absolutely was for the bulk of its existence guided by Marxist analysis, even if errors were made along the way.
On the other hand, Capitalism kills millions directly every year. The US Empire committed many deliberate genocides during the USSR's existence, while the Soviets stopped the Holocaust. You are happily accepting the US State Department line, and doing their work for free.
Yep. Well, yeah that and the CIA interference.
But seriously? Same thing happens under capitalism too. It’s not so much the economic structure as it is the desire for total control. Why do we so fetishize molding the world to our will when given the opportunity.
Sick little monkeys we are.
That's why consent of the governed is important regardless of economic ideology
All systems should hold those with power responsible if they abuse power. I'd suggest harshest punishment for politicians via referendum of the constituents. Don't like that people could put you behind bars for life? Don't step into the political arena! Grift in the private sector if you need to be your worst self, we shouldn't have to keep tabs on all the rat fucks in Ottawa (Canada). If they do some shady shit, jail em or worse