this post was submitted on 27 Nov 2025
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Better yet, let's learn from the success of socialist countries and smash the capitalist state, replace it with a socialist one, and gradually collectivize production and distribution with a focus on meeting the needs of the people.
Ok, but how do we get there? How do we keep oligarchs, (like the ones who own Palantir and work with other oligarchs like Netenyahu using remote weapons of mass genocide to fight for them and gain ground in order to control others), from taking advantage of the power vacuum left by destabilization?
Again, taking cues from socialist countries, creating a mass working class party to overthrow and replace the state. We aren't talking about just attacking with no plan going forward, but organizing directly so as to already have an organization in place. Capitalists only have the power they do because of the state, if we smash and replace it they have no power.
Which socialist country would be the best example?
The state, as well as the public and private military and resources they hoard and control.
The USSR, PRC, Cuba, Vietnam, Laos, and many more serve as valuable lessons for us. We can't cleanly map their conditions onto ours, as the US is a dying Empire rather than an underdeveloped/agrarian society liberating themselved from colonialism like many of these countries were before socialism, but we can still learn from their methods.
As for the millitary, that's an aspect of the state. Capitalists only control the resources they do because the state backs them up. Revolutionary history teaches us how this unfolds.
Uhh....
History should teach you that the co-founder of the Heritage Foundation was traveling around Moscow and Eastern Europe when the Soviet Union collapsed, but it never really gets talked about for some reason.
A conservative who essentially birthed Project 2025 and is famously quoted as saying "I don't want everyone to vote," was sneaking in computers and other electronics to Soviet dissidents while teaching soviet politicians all about American "democracy" just prior to the collapse.
Then he and several other members of Heritage were ready to fill the power vacuum and help establish the first go between for U.S. and Russian capitalist businesses.
"You capture the Soviet Union --I'm going to capture the states."-Thomas Roe, Heritage Foundation board member and founder of the State Policy Network to fellow Heritage Foundation board member Robert Krieble.
In 1989, the Krieble Institute was created "to promote democracy and economic freedom in the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe."
1989: A Republican in Moscow (WaPo article about Weyrich holding mock elections)
1991: RUSSIA HOUSE, TRADING IN ITS NAME WaPo Article about the first ever go between for U.S. and Russian businesses involving Weyrich and Krieble
PBS Documentary about Weyrich and Krieble involvement in Collapse of USSR Playing For Power (2012)
I'm aware of the dissolution of the USSR. It lasted for nearly a full century, and the causes of its dissolution have been studied by every single communist party in existence thoroughly. They didn't dissolve because a random far-right Statesian whispered evil things, that was a symptom of the dissolution.
Further, without the US Empire, there aren't going to be nearly as many ways for the remaining capitalists to exert their will or coup.
What's their conclusion?
Various, multifaceted reasons. There isn't a one size fits all answer to that, but compounding problems. Each party has different takes on what was more or less important, but the big takeaway was that it was by no means inevitable.
You realize that all of those are a massive failure right? Living in those places was and is a nightmare. You know that right? If not, then you're not smart enough to be replacing any form of government.
It's much the opposite, living in those places was and is very good, especially when viewed over time and not as an individual snapshot. The USSR, for example, managed to double life expectancy, provide free, high quality healthcare, education, and low-cost or free housing for all, lowered working hours, and had one of the fastest growing economies in the world while democratizing society. The PRC is on track to become the world's indusputably most advanced country in the following decades. What's going on is that socialism and socialist countries have been systemically demonized in the west to prevent the working classes from seeking an alternative.
I'm not a genius by any stretch, but I've studied these countries, engaged with theory, organize in real life, and more. I'm smart enough to understand this, which I'd say everyone is if they put in the effort. Intelligence isn't nearly as striated as liberals would have you believe.
Cowbee, you have an amazing ability to defend socialism and explain the same concepts day after day while never allowing frustration or anger to taint your replies. I salute you, comrade. 🖖
Thank you, comrade! 🫡
You clearly have NO idea about how bad the USSR actually was. And you clearly have no idea how many of its citizens were killed by the government or died from starvation or cold. Not do you have any idea as to how much funding it was given from the US and other countries just to stay afloat (especially in WW2) because they couldn't organize their own factories that were useful etc etc and the US has to send OUR tank building teams over to them just to show them how to efficiently build tanks, and we sent them 13,000 tanks, 400,000 jeeps and trucks, and 14,000 aircraft. Aka the USSR couldn't even stand on its own 2 feet against Germany and we had to send them an insane amount of firepower to ensure them not falling. And about the life expectancy thing. It did double life expectancy between 1915 and the 1960s as did most countries around the world including the US due to improved birthrates and better sanitation and vaccines and antibiotics. However from 1960-1980 other countries like the US continued to go up while the USSR actually started declining again. So yes please continue to spread your false lies. And let's talk about how every one of those countries you spoke of couldn't survive without support from other countries. Meanwhile the country that you hate so much (the US) continues to survive and thrive while heavily supporting a dozen of other countries and are contributing some form of assistance to over 175 countries worldwide.
No, lol. This was like a bingo-card for generic, lazy, unsourced anti-communism. I've heard every one of these arguments before.
Deaths by the state - Capitalists, fascists, sabateurs, Tsarists, landlords, and kulaks were targeted by the state. These weren't random killings, but targeted attacks towards classes of people that had taken up arms against the people, and as such this was popularly supported. The communists weren't butchers, nor were they killing people willy-nilly.
Famine - Prior to collectivization of agriculture in the 1930s, famine was common in Russia. The kulak system of farming, itself a bourgeois model, was extremely exploitative and very inefficient. The 1930s famine was the last outright famine outside of wartime, and was caused by a combination of weather disaster (which collectivized farming was capable of resisting better) and kulaks killing their crops and livestock to resist the Red Army.
Life Expectancy - Life expectancy climbed not just because of general sanitation, but because housing and employment were gaurunteed, healthcare and education were free and high quality, and millions were directly lifted from poverty. Housing itself didn't just increase in quantity, but quality, as prior living conditions outside of major cities were in horrible shacks. Deaths due to hypothermia went down dramatically thanks to improved soviet housing.
Lend-Lease - The soviets are understood to have been capable of beating the Nazis without lend-lease. Lend-Lease was very helpful, no doubt, but it arrived after the soviets had turned the tides on the Nazi onslaught. The Red Army was responsible for 85% of the combat against the Nazis, and their large investment in heavy industry prior to the war was crucial in their success, despite coming into the 20th century far behind the rest of Europe.
Source.
You have no clue what you're talking about.
Surgical Dissasembly of a Proud Cultist, Cowbee, oil and pastel, 2025. Acquired by museum same year
Thanks comrade 🫡
Oh I know exactly what I'm talking about. You're just brainwashed. Too far gone for anyone to talk sense into. And if you truly think that the USSR and Cuba didn't get much aid from other countries including the US, you really are just dumb. I do not have the time nor do I care enough to educate you. All I can say is, you really need to learn how to research FACTS not myths and lies. Also I have one more truth for you. COMMUNISM HAS NEVER WORKED. I know I know, maybe just another 20 or 30 genocides and world wars from now and they'll get the kinks worked out. But I doubt it. And maybe just maybe one will be able to survive without the help of a capitalist system and not end up being a 3rd world country with a shit economy. I personally have friends who grew up in Russia (it was still the USSR when they were about 10) and China and south Korea and Mexico and Vietnam. Every one of them will tell you how much better the US is than where they grew up. Communism is perfect on paper, but it will never ever work because it requires people to be perfect in order for it to work properly. And people will never be perfect. That's why capitalism and democracy works better because they at least somewhat keep that in check. My olive branch and honestly my best idea for what the US could become would be a socialist democracy similar to Sweden. That would actually be able to work and would be very beneficial for all the citizens.
This is another ridiculous comment.
The US being "better" to live in - As I explained, the US is an imperialist country that plunders the world for its resources. It isn't a closed loop with a system that works, it's a global parasite.
Surviving without aid - Socialist countries recieve sanctions, embargoes, coup attempts, and genocide from capitalist countries, not aid. The US Empire has committed genocide against Koreans, Vietnamese, and far more to serve its own interests. Socialist countries do often start in the third world, not as imperialist countries, and develop on their own labor and not via imperialism like the US Empire.
Communism on paper - There's absolutely nothing about communism that requires people to be in perfect order for it to work. I genuinely have no clue what you mean by this, I've heard this before but it doesn't actually make any sense.
Communism and democracy - Communism and socialism are more democratic than capitalism can be, because the working classes are in control, rather than private capitalists.
Sweden - Sweden is a capitalist country that, like the US, depends on imperialism to fund its safety nets. Like the US, Sweden is a dictatorship of capital.
No, I'm not "brainwashed," I've just done far more research into the subject of socialism and communism both in theory and in practice. It's like you're trying to be someone's hyper-conservative uncle right now, I've heard all of these before and none of them are valid.
Big fat 0, unless you mean the genocide communists thwarted in 1945
Holy shit lmao, the sheer desperation and illiteracy it takes to try and pin the world wars on communism when ww1 started before there were any communist countries and ww2 was started by genocidal german capitalists. You are flailing, my guy. Red, mad and nude in the extreme.
Also, format your shit
You just arrived here on Lemmy, parroting every Redditor talking point, and we’re brainwashed? Sorry to pop the corporate media bubble you’d been living under.
Also brainwashing isn’t real, in fact it was a CIA cold war psyop. The True Story of Brainwashing and How It Shaped America
Masses, Elites, and Rebels: The Theory of “Brainwashing”
Good Lord, imagine rattling off all these stale, pre-programmed thought terminating cliches, and trying to call other people brainwashed
God, what a nightmare
But maybe I'm just not smart enough to read this graph correctly. Maybe it's actually upside down.
Yeah because they expanded their healthcare system in 1949 as well and actually started heavily using vaccines and antibiotics. Common sense is just a simple Google away lmao
So what you're saying is that the CPC siezed power and then life in China immediately, rapidly improved to the point where their life expectancy is now higher than America's? Excellent, glad we're on the same page.
Oh, did they not have those things before the evil communists took over? How interesting
Go back to reddit
You can tell the terminal reddit shitlibs by the combination of extreme smugness while also being completely wrong
A socialist state will always be recaptured by capital. The state must be smashed, repeatedly and relentlessly, until no state can ever rise again.
You can't collectivize all of production and distribution if you keep smashing the state, you'll just create a bunch of communalist cells at best, at worst you'll recreate capitalist relations and a new state. The state must wither, and it does so by erasing the basis of the state, ie by erasing class. You can't erase class without collectivizing all of production and distribution.
Anarchism is primarily about communalization of production. Marxism is primarily about collectivization of production.
When I say “communalization,” I mean anarchists propose horizontalist, decentralized cells, similar to early humanity’s cooperative production but with more interconnection and modern tech. When I say collectivization, I mean the unification of all of humanity into one system, where production and distribution is planned collectively to satisfy the needs of everyone as best as possible.
For anarchists, collectivized society still seems to retain the state, as some anarchists conflate administration with the state as it represents a hierarchy. For Marxists, this focus on communalism creates inter-cell class distinctions, as each cell only truly owns their own means of production, giving rise to class distinctions and thus states in the future.
For Marxists, socialism must have a state, a state can only wither with respect to how far along it has come in collectivizing production and therefore eliminating class. All states are authoritarian, but we cannot get rid of the state without erasing the foundations of the state: class society, and to do so we must collectivize production and distribution globally. Socialist states, where the working class wields its authority against capitalists and fascists, are the means by which this collectivization can actually happen, and are fully in-line with Marx’s beliefs. Communism as a stateless, classless, moneyless society is only possible post-socialism.
Abolishing the state overnight would not create the kind of society Marxists advocate for advancing towards, and if anything, would result in the resumption of competition and the resurgance of capitalism if Marx and Engels predictions are correct.
Trotskyist permanent revolution bullshit.
Guardrails are only enforceable by the state. Without the state to smash capitalism and enforce guardrails against corruption and the power of greed, capitalism and authoritarianism will always step in to fill the power vacuum.
This is why communism has always failed within a few months to a few years of initiation: lack of guardrails and laws that are effectively enforced against capitalism or authoritarianism. It’s why every “communist” state in history devolved into an authoritarian, anti-communist political structure very, very quickly. Hell, even in Russia communism was effectively dead by 1918.
We are so close to having the technology to implement direct participatory democracy (A.K.A., political communism), where things like presidents and premiers and politicians in general just don’t exist, and only minor functionaries and coordinatinative councils remain to carry out the people’s directives.
What is still needed, however, is a highly educated and literate population that values education, facts, and meritocracy - thereby suffocating conservatism and strangling it to death - and for that population to have an exceedingly tiny level of economic inequality, such that the wealth is returned properly into the hands of the Working Class that created it, and most people can then acquire the mental headspace to focus on more than just daily survival needs (as in, focus on community-level or even nation-level subjects).
A strong state is not necessarily a dangerous one. What makes ours dangerous is that power is concentrated at the top, with those who have money (capitalists) calling the shots. A distributed, citizen-directed state that is utterly immune from money and power hierarchies can be built that will only ever feel oppressive to those who are inherently abusive, greedy, and malicious.