Sorry that was reply to David49.
Should I Marry a Murderer - Netflix
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Do the Labour Party have Communist policies?
(211 Posts)There has been some confusion, over quite a long time on GN, by posters who suggest or state that the Labour Party has Communist policies
This is so incorrect, I decided to explain what Communism actual was both in theory and in the "Communist" states we have had/do have.
. My parents were Communists - and have also studied politics and economics at uni.
We haven’t ever had a ‘true” Communist society, but these are the features:
No one, no one at all, owns any private property, nor owns any businesses, nor own any land, nor the means of production, nor goods beyond their needs.
All run by the state, which in theory was post a workers revolution, and workers co-operatives.
In the original communist theory:
People are paid not according to their abilities, but their needs.
All health and education and similar services are run by the state, no private opportunities at all.
All receive a state pension/welfare is necessary however much they have paid in, ie, again, according to need, not savings and so on.
Of course, the societies called Communist did not reach this theoretical Communism, but there was certainly no private ownership or other kinds of ownership as described as above: and health, education and welfare all run by the state.
Note - meals were provided at work, and schools and all welfare places, but there was only a few years when meals were communally provided for those who wanted
Most people, as we do, wanted to eat at home except for lunch or other work breaks, where food was still supplied, and did so, once the turmoil of revolution ended
*But States we called Communist were was not run by Worker’s Co-operatives, they were run by supposedly free elections -
- hence the rise of those in power as we have known them, and the KGB et al*
I suggest we stop using the term Communist unless it is accurate.
It as happened so many times I decided to explain, and will again.
So.....hence this thread.
Another try at giving posters a direct way into the web ref that didnt work above:
www.google.com/search?client=safari&rls=en&q=Did+people+have+to+work+if+they+had+mental+health+problems+in+Cuba+2015&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8
I wouldn't say China was a successful communist state. I won't visit because of their record on Human Rights. However if anyone here has a leaning towards communism I have no problem with them seeking a new life there, which of course they won't.
Allira
Every day's a school day etc.
After VE Day it took the US a few months to finish developing a nuclear weapon using captured German scientists. Had Hitler had that weapon he would not have hesitated to use it against Russia. If Britain had been invaded or neutral Hitler would have had a nuclear bomb for sure.
As for the allies not helping Russia, the whole of Europe was starving and Stalin was being very belligerent over resettlement of displaced peoples. Stalin wanted total control of as much of Europe as possible, that included control of food and deliberately starved many POWs and Ethnic groups he didn’t like.
You are quite right David, but if you balance your story and my story, as it were, by getting both sides of a coin, the end result would be closer to what actually happened post WW2.
Stalin, it's worth remembering, was a "marmite" person:
he was deeply, deeply beloved by many Russians as well as hated
Perhaps all leaders of his ilk - tending towards Dictatorships -
have this quality of fervent followers and fervent critics.....
we only have to look at Trump or Netanyahu or many others over the world.
Especially in wartime?
Churchill - there is no doubt - was loved/respected..
..but when it came to the elections, everything he stood for - the old ways - were totally thrown out.
I realise I am giving a great deal of often closely researched information-
- but its not a classroom, its a discussion chamber for those who enjoy it.
Stalin is a 'marmite' person only if marmite had killed millions of people.
Gaza.
Stalin, it's worth remembering, was a "marmite" person:
he was deeply, deeply beloved by many Russians as well as hated
All politians have their supporters and opposition, opposing Stalin was often fatal, only the lucky ones were sent to a gulag.
Anyone who was not a Russian national faced death, imprisonment and deportations before during and after WW2, this continued right up to his death. This affected ethnic Germans, Poles, Tartars, Cossacks as well as Jews, millions died, countless others suffered terribly.
Only a Russian would paint Stalin as a good guy
Explaining is not the same as excusing:
I am doing the former.
I think if people eulogised Stalin in the press and erected statues of their Beloved Leader, they probably did so because it was preferable to being sent to the Gulag or worse.
Allira Stalin was really loved by many of his people, like it or not. Of course not intellectuals, or those educated who could see it for what it was -
but by huge numbers of very ordinary people - why is this so hard to acknowledge? It's a common enough phenomenon.
Many of us cant imagine for the life of us why people adore Trump so much they have pictures of him as the pope or even Jesus and the are not, to some, a joke.
www.google.com/search?client=safari&rls=en&q=picture+trump+as+jesus+oval+office&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8
Posters might like to read this 2019 article. Its instructive.
www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-47975704
From 1986 to 1987, Starmer served as the editor of Socialist Alternatives, a Trotskyist radical magazine produced by an organisation under the same name, which represented the British section of the International Revolutionary Marxist Tendency (IRMT).[283]
Wikipedia
Lyndie
From 1986 to 1987, Starmer served as the editor of Socialist Alternatives, a Trotskyist radical magazine produced by an organisation under the same name, which represented the British section of the International Revolutionary Marxist Tendency (IRMT).[283]
Wikipedia
When he was young and idealistic!
Lyndie
From 1986 to 1987, Starmer served as the editor of Socialist Alternatives, a Trotskyist radical magazine produced by an organisation under the same name, which represented the British section of the International Revolutionary Marxist Tendency (IRMT).[283]
Wikipedia
As he was only there for a year I assume he saw the error of his ways. 🤷♀️
Make of it what you will. I just remembered he said he was a Marxist fairly recently and as I couldn't remember when, so I tried to find out more and this came up.
petra
Lyndie
From 1986 to 1987, Starmer served as the editor of Socialist Alternatives, a Trotskyist radical magazine produced by an organisation under the same name, which represented the British section of the International Revolutionary Marxist Tendency (IRMT).[283]
WikipediaAs he was only there for a year I assume he saw the error of his ways. 🤷♀️
Yup. At Uni in 1972. I was VP of the Students Union so elections were...let's say, interesting.
.There were 4/5 mini very far left groups - Trotskyists aka as Lyndie said the main one...
but the Maoists were pretty "there" ....
then there was the split Communist Party (Euro Communists (the main one) and the Stalinists, and some obscure group I cant recall...
(And a great deal of conflict around how much time women actually got to speak out - I was pretty much chosen as the token woman, with far less experience but fit for purpose.
I stood on the "broad left" ticket which by the 1990's had pretty well morphed into New Labour under Blair (some of the people I knew became MP's or worked for such organisations as the then NCCL now Liberty)
Heady days, it doesn't surprise me at all the youthful idealism before reality sets in 🤣
Suggestions that this has somehow tainted what view he holds no, or to be more accurate, what policies he now has to espouse...
Might take a hard look at Boris Johnson for example at the utter misogyny and careless privilege of the Bullingdon Club at Oxford, at more or less the same time as Starmer (after a stint at Leeds Uni) went there......
Sorry Lyndie I missed out after I said "AKA", the International Revolutionary Marxist Tendency, which have of course morphed into the Socialist Workers Party.
Lee Anderson is a parody of political change - from quite Left, to Reform, but I dont hear it being called out in the same way?
Lyndie
Make of it what you will. I just remembered he said he was a Marxist fairly recently and as I couldn't remember when, so I tried to find out more and this came up.
Yes he did, I remember hearing that,too. On more than one occasion and seeing that I live many,many miles away it must have been quite widespread, within the last couple of years. It explains some of his actions and his desire to wipe out nationalistic tendencies in England.Luckily he isn’t very strong as a leader so he doesn’t follow his inner yearnings.
nanna8
Lyndie
Make of it what you will. I just remembered he said he was a Marxist fairly recently and as I couldn't remember when, so I tried to find out more and this came up.
Yes he did, I remember hearing that,too. On more than one occasion and seeing that I live many,many miles away it must have been quite widespread, within the last couple of years. It explains some of his actions and his desire to wipe out nationalistic tendencies in England.Luckily he isn’t very strong as a leader so he doesn’t follow his inner yearnings.
What do you mean by "nationalistic tendencies"? I didn't realise he was trying to wipe them out (whatever they are). Incidentally, Starmer is the PM of the whole UK, not just England.
Goodness me, are we forever held to account for our politics in our teenage years and twenties? Are we not sllowed to grow and change?
I would have to confess to having been a Young Conservative for all of three weeks. How very embarrassing. 😡😡😡
“What do you mean by "nationalistic tendencies"? I didn't realise he was trying to wipe them out (whatever they are). Incidentally, Starmer is the PM of the whole UK, not just England.”
It is quite acceptable to be proud of your Scottish, Welsh or even Yorkshire heritage, but somehow showing pride of English heritage is termed nationalism
I was thinking that only last week.
In a broad way, it doesnt make sense in the slightest.
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