Is Che Guevara or Soviet-style Communism trendy for the left?

[Venom]

There are a few fringe totalitarian statists among the online left. Good luck running into them in the street or mainstream politics. As for their counterparts on the right...


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Most American leftists seem to want to continue in the egalitarian direction and build on/move past liberalism.

 

[dudalb]

That is only a problem if MONEY is the only "currency" in use.

In a honor society, or one where social standing is very important, Capitalism is not the Capital of Money, but of connections, favors, friends, honors.

If Billionaires would compete with each other who could fund the biggest public works projects (as they used to), Capitalism would be much more sustainable.

In a society where Public Shaming is a central part, a rich person would get shunned if there are any houseless, hungry people around who he could help without any real impact on his wealth.

Living in another reality, I see.

 

[dudalb]

There are a few fringe totalitarian statists among the online left. Good luck running into them in the street or mainstream politics. As for their counterparts on the right...


[IMGw=400]https://www.algemeiner.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/06/Screen-Shot-2021-06-29-at-2.29.09-PM.jpg[/IMGw]

[IMGw=400]https://pbs.twimg.com/media/FUmFkPiWUAgH7_z.jpg[/IMGw]


Most American leftists seem to want to continue in the egalitarian direction and build on/move past liberalism.

Which I don't think is a good idea. Everybody getitng fair treament, yes, a society of equals, no.

 

[Venom]

All of you leftists are pretty much communists, although you'll never admit it.

Well I feel it's tough for many leftists to admit it when they are discouraged by the connotation invoked by the c-word. Two entire generations of Americans have been consumed by anti-communist panic. They redefined communism to mean the taking over the government stage of the transition from the current system to a new one, in the idea of some socialist thinkers.

That's all people saw--governments getting overthrown by revolutionary movements and replaced by Communist-In-Name-Only dictatorships that behaved more or less like the monarchies and republics they replaced.

 

[Venom]

Which I don't think is a good idea. Everybody getitng fair treament, yes, a society of equals, no.

Depending on what this means. Consider...

But one man is superior to another physically, or mentally, and supplies more labor in the same time, or can labor for a longer time; and labor, to serve as a measure, must be defined by its duration or intensity, otherwise it ceases to be a standard of measurement. This equal right is an unequal right for unequal labor. It recognizes no class differences, because everyone is only a worker like everyone else; but it tacitly recognizes unequal individual endowment, and thus productive capacity, as a natural privilege. It is, therefore, a right of inequality, in its content, like every right. Right, by its very nature, can consist only in the application of an equal standard; but unequal individuals (and they would not be different individuals if they were not unequal) are measurable only by an equal standard insofar as they are brought under an equal point of view, are taken from one definite side only – for instance, in the present case, are regarded only as workers and nothing more is seen in them, everything else being ignored. Further, one worker is married, another is not; one has more children than another, and so on and so forth. Thus, with an equal performance of labor, and hence an equal in the social consumption fund, one will in fact receive more than another, one will be richer than another, and so on. To avoid all these defects, right, instead of being equal, would have to be unequal.

 

[Trebuchet]

Soviet-style "communism" is basically ultra-authoritarianism, with a soupcon of oligarchy. You know, like the sort of government favored by Trump and today's Republicans.

 

[smartcooky]

Made my own thread to discuss it. I can't say I have my finger on the pulse of the entire left. I do have a vantage of participating in political discussions among many friends that are liberal or left to a varying degree, even including those that are actively hostile to capitalism on general principle. Among them I can't find a single example of praise or apologism for the crimes against humanity or totalitarian rule of the Soviet Union, nor any use of the image of Che Guevara to represent "wokeness" or some kind of trendy hipster badge.
I suspect that to what extent this may have existed in the past is all but extinct among the modern left. If I'm mistaken I would certainly like to hear more. If it still exists at all, I question whether it's sizable enough to describe a typical left reaction to the issue.

Then you either haven't been looking in the right places, or you have the wrong friends!

What I can tell you is that only the far-left thinks Soviet style communism - which should properly be titled "extreme left wing totalitarianism" (or as Trebuchet said "ultra-authoritarianism") was ever good idea. Those proponents of it back in the 1960s to 1980's had no ******* idea what was really happening behind the Iron Curtain... it was very much a case of "the grass looking greener on the other side of the fence"

New Zealand is probably one of the most liberal countries in the world, much more left wing than any of your most progressive liberal Democrats (if you transplanted AOC or Bernie into NZ politics, they would be considered centre-right). We have a comprehensive social welfare system, subsidized health care and prescriptions and universal retirement entitlements as of right by being a citizen. Most right wing conservative politicians in the US would call that communism - although to be frank people like Gosar, EmptyG, Bobblehead, Gaetz and the other scumbags and nutters running Asylum America likely consider Rinos to be communists.

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

... Almost nobody buys into soviet style marxist leninism anymore. ....

Neither did the Soviets. That's why the government had to slaughter a couple million of them.

 

[Orphia Nay]

Trotsky was killed in Mexico, not sure the year but it's claimed Stalin wasn't happy with him. His home was preserved as a museum in his honor.

The movement was strong into the 1940"s in Mexico, in fact there is s book on coffee chats among famous artists, well to do names ay the time, a minor political figures and thinkers of the time. A copy ended up in the family library.
It seems one nationally famous author chronicled the group and printed it all later on.
My SIL got a copy in her college days.

It's a trainwreck of a read. A bunch of well off folks brain farting, commenting on issues of the day and proposed ideas to make it different at times.
And keeping the local liquor store busy.

In the reality of it the Communist party was loud and visible, but never really broke Mexico of being far from her regular routine of depose bad leader, then depose that one later for being corrupt. Rinse and repeat.

No visible movement remains. Occasionally a political party pops up using a red star as it's symbol and then fades away as it never gains much hold.
Just like all the others in a mountain of new parties every six years or do. The biggest three remain.

I've just finished reading the biography of Frida Kahlo, famous Mexican artist, and it has a lot in it about Communism. Kahlo was loosely a communist, and Trotsky lived in her home in Mexico City while he was there.

But, like all things Communist, there was a split, and Trotsky fell out of favour not long before his murder.

When Kahlo was in Paris, she moved in intellectual circles, and hated the intellectuals for their "brain farting" as you describe it.

I've also read The Communist Manifesto a few times, but think it's pure theory, not a practical guide to government, and have never wanted to buy a Che Guevara t-shirt.

 

[acbytesla]

No, Che is not at all trendy, except around here where two members have the shirt (one even bought in Cuber!) and two members' wives had the shirt at one point.

I had a poster of him on my wall in my twenties. I thought he was Carlos Santana.

 

[Brainster]

I had a poster of him on my wall in my twenties. I thought he was Carlos Santana.

C'mon man, everybody knows Che only played the bass! Still that's three in this one thread that owned an image and two that were Che-adjacent.

ETA: When National Lampoon did their "Is Nothing Sacred" issue, guess what they had on the cover?

The iconic image of Che, getting hit with a pie in the face.

 

[smartcooky]

I had a poster of him on my wall in my twenties. I thought he was Carlos Santana.

Hilarious. I promise you this is not the first time I have heard about that happening!

 

[Andy_Ross]

Trotsky was killed in Mexico, not sure the year but it's claimed Stalin wasn't happy with him. His home was preserved as a museum in his honor.

To say Stalin "wasn't happy with him" is an understatement.
Trotsky opposed Stalin's theory of socialism in one country in favour of permanent revolution. He opposed the bureaucracy and anti-democracy developed in the Soviet Union under Stalin.
He thought that Marxist–Leninist regimes would lead to the establishment of a 'degenerated or deformed workers' state, where the capitalist elite was replaced by an unaccountable bureaucratic one without true democracy or workers' control.
He favoured government by democratic workers councils (soviets) the opposite of Stalinism.

 

[Andy_Ross]

To people of a certain age in the UK this version of the famous t-shirt is just as familiar.

 

[Darat]

When I was politically active, I was on the left, but sadly I've always been a pragmatist so never gel neatly with any kind of extremist. Back then - 40 years ago - it was still just about possible for a reasonable person to be in denial about how terrible the USSR was and blame its woes on "the west" or claim it was all western propaganda. Today there can be no excuse for anyone to not recognise and know what a terrible regime the USSR was. Anyone harking back to that as the "good old days" is an idiot (albeit a lot of people who lived under it do hark back to it being the good old days).

I do have sympathy for those people who first come across communism - as the theory - and decide it is a good idea, it is after all the epitome of fairness and just rewards for your own work. The issue of course is that it is a fantasy that wasn't based on anything factual, like all the ideologies of the time it was based on "just so" stories. So, since like all ideologies it does not accurately describe nor model the real world it can never be implemented as the theory describes it in the real world.

 

[8enotto]

I've just finished reading the biography of Frida Kahlo, famous Mexican artist, and it has a lot in it about Communism. Kahlo was loosely a communist, and Trotsky lived in her home in Mexico City while he was there.

But, like all things Communist, there was a split, and Trotsky fell out of favour not long before his murder.

When Kahlo was in Paris, she moved in intellectual circles, and hated the intellectuals for their "brain farting" as you describe it.

I've also read The Communist Manifesto a few times, but think it's pure theory, not a practical guide to government, and have never wanted to buy a Che Guevara t-shirt.

I grew up in "commie bad!" middle America and everything Russia was in a bad light, communism too as it goes with.

It didn't take long in Mexico to see socialist ideas, well tempered against reality do make a functional democratic government. Never perfect but functional.

There is no stigma to a red star, a people's revolution idea or anything moderately left, in our standards here.
Many of our folk heros like Kahlo, Riviera and Trotsky are all popular history.
Even though few would want their ideals in practice.

Side note, what goes as unnoticed here in Mexico would have the American ultra right in heart attack mode. Yet actually living here it's like going back to 1980's American as far as most things feel.
It's not anywhere near suppressive or unpleasant.

 

[catsmate]

Made my own thread to discuss it. I can't say I have my finger on the pulse of the entire left. I do have a vantage of participating in political discussions among many friends that are liberal or left to a varying degree, even including those that are actively hostile to capitalism on general principle. Among them I can't find a single example of praise or apologism for the crimes against humanity or totalitarian rule of the Soviet Union, nor any use of the image of Che Guevara to represent "wokeness" or some kind of trendy hipster badge.

I suspect that to what extent this may have existed in the past is all but extinct among the modern left. If I'm mistaken I would certainly like to hear more. If it still exists at all, I question whether it's sizable enough to describe a typical left reaction to the issue.

No.

 

[catsmate]

All of you leftists are pretty much communists, although you'll never admit it.

Its still trendy to condemn Capitalism, from your iPad.

 

[Silly Green Monkey]

When I was politically active, I was on the left, but sadly I've always been a pragmatist so never gel neatly with any kind of extremist. Back then - 40 years ago - it was still just about possible for a reasonable person to be in denial about how terrible the USSR was and blame its woes on "the west" or claim it was all western propaganda. Today there can be no excuse for anyone to not recognise and know what a terrible regime the USSR was. Anyone harking back to that as the "good old days" is an idiot (albeit a lot of people who lived under it do hark back to it being the good old days).

I do have sympathy for those people who first come across communism - as the theory - and decide it is a good idea, it is after all the epitome of fairness and just rewards for your own work. The issue of course is that it is a fantasy that wasn't based on anything factual, like all the ideologies of the time it was based on "just so" stories. So, since like all ideologies it does not accurately describe nor model the real world it can never be implemented as the theory describes it in the real world.

Even worse, Marx was writing at the same time a large number of Utopian writers were, and his ideal society isn't unusual for the field. Unluckily for communism, some nation decided to try out the ideal, but as in all idealized and fictional societies, it's not something real humans can manage. What would the world be like if someone had tried something like Erehwon or something even more far-fetched?

 

[The Atheist]

Even worse, Marx was writing at the same time a large number of Utopian writers were, and his ideal society isn't unusual for the field.

I think Orwell summed it up best when wrote how the number one hero of 14-year-old boys at Eton in the early 1920s, was Lenin.

Then they grew up.