Next time one of these knuckled-headed liberals or some weak-kneed Conservative tells you that Liberal Socialism is not Communism, show them this quote:
All Communists are for socialism, seeing it as a transition stage to communism, a higher stage of economic, political, and social development. All socialists aren’t for communism; some see Communists as too radical.
Socialism is social ownership of the main means of production (factories, transportation) and the commanding heights of an economy (banks and other financial institutions) and runs them in the interests of the working people, using part of the value that workers produce to build up the social institutions and benefits for the whole people.
Communism, as we see it, is a more advanced stage that comes after socialism. Communism, a stage of development never reached anywhere yet, reduces the state apparatus to minimal administrative functions, since people and society will have advanced past the need for coercive functions like armies, and will directly and indirectly provide people with the full benefits of the labor they engage in.
We see communism as a later stage of development. A stage when the production of the necessities of life has become plentiful, when there will no longer be shortages of food, housing, jobs, health care and education.
We see communism as a stage when governments can “wither away” to mere administrative agencies rather than maintain coercive control on behalf of exploiting classes through armies, police forces, court systems, tax agencies.
Socialism, which we are advocates of, is a transitional stage between capitalism and communism, a stage where a change in production relations, social relations, and individual outlooks become solidified.
When people have gone through a prolonged period of living in a society not based on scarcity, exploitation, and oppression, and when production for use rather than profit is a well-established economic system, and when the productive forces have advanced to be able to provide for the needs of all people, then society will be able to advance to communism. Communists are advocates of both socialism and communism.
In a socialist country, there is still a struggle that goes on between the ruling working class and the dispossessed capitalist class inside the country, and between the working class in power in one country and the capitalist class in power in other countries. The stage of socialism, as we have learned from experience, is not irreversible, and there is not a short, quick march to communism. ——— Source
While I have seen socialism in action in many European and other democratic countries where the majority of the people are perfectly happy, I always believed that communism was an abomination because of Red China and the Soviets. The description in this article makes it sound very benign. Are we to understand then, that the practice of communism by the former Soviet Union and by the PRC is not the true way of that ideological economic system, that democracy could function at the same time as communism, that fear and repression are not a given with that system? This article has given me a whole lot more to think about.
It’s my job. I wear a badge. 😎